


They Live by Night

by TheWineDarkSea



Series: Secret Agent Man [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Undercover, noir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 02:58:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 23,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11980650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWineDarkSea/pseuds/TheWineDarkSea
Summary: Deacon and the Sole Survivor go undercover in a Goodneighbor gang to rescue kidnapped synths.There, fake romance turns into so much more.





	1. Chapter 1

Four months running with the Railroad, and Wanderer had gotten very good at keeping an ear out for the sound of trouble. Today, trouble sounded like the whir and clank of power armor worn by the Brotherhood patrol coming toward them.

“Shit, no time to hide.” Deacon said from beside her. They were caught in the open in broad daylight, and the patrol would see them make a move. They might pursue, they might not, but it was a risk they couldn’t take with a package in tow.

She turned to the synth. “C32, your name’s Phil if they ask. These bastards will put us all down if we give them an excuse. Got it, Phil?”

The young man nodded frantically. He was practically trembling. Not good. He was fresh out of the Institute and hadn’t mastered the Wastelander swagger yet. He was too stiff, too formal, and too frightened of everything. He would raise suspicions if the Brotherhood got him talking, and in her experience it didn’t take much for the Brotherhood to cry synth. If the patrol stopped, she had to keep them focused on Deacon and herself.

“It’ll be fine,” she told C32. “Just stay cool.”

Deacon said, “Too bad I left my Power Armor at home. We could have had a wrestling match or something. That would have been fun.”

They waited by the side of the road as the patrol approached. The officer locked eyes with Wanderer, and signaled to the scribe and Paladin with her. The three changed course, heading right for them. _Shit_. Wanderer could take out the officer and the scribe before they had a chance to shoot back, but the Paladin in Power Armor… no way she could take him on at close range. Not with Deliverer, anyway. Better not to raise the alarm.

“Afternoon,” the officer said in greeting when she reached them. Wanderer and Deacon mumbled a reply. C32 shifted from foot to foot, rubbing his hands against the side of his legs anxiously.

“What’s wrong, kid? Never seen the Brotherhood of Steel up close before?” she asked. Her tone was light, joking, but all three of them had weapons drawn, ready for trouble. She jabbed him in the stomach with her laser rifle.

“Ah… um.” C32 stammered, unsure whether a yes or no would draw more attention. He held out his hands to show he wasn’t a threat, and cast a desperate glance at Deacon. The officer and scribe exchanged a look, _what’s up with this kid_? Time for her to intervene.

“You folks need something?” she asked the officer, her voice clipped.

That got their attention. Two heads whipped around to focus on her. The Paladin said, “Watch your tone, Wastelander,” his words loud and mechanical through his helmet.

“Easy, partner,” Deacon said to her. “They’re from the Brotherhood, and they’re here to help.”

“That’s right, civilian,” said the Paladin, not catching any of Deacon’s sass. Then again, she couldn’t blame him. Deacon was a master of deadpan.

The officer was still watching Wanderer. “We have some wounded at a checkpoint up the road. You have any medical supplies to spare?”

“Sure,” Wanderer said.

“Happy to help!” Deacon piped up, all smiles.

Wanderer walked over to the supply bag and withdrew a couple of stimpacks and a bottle of purified water. She handed them over to the officer.

“Appreciate it,” she said, stowing the supplies away.

Then the Paladin stepped forward. Wanderer took a few quick steps back, grabbing hold of C32 and pulling him back with her to make sure he gave the rig space. Power armor could snap a man’s leg, easy, if a person got in its way.

The Paladin picked up the bag and overturned it, dumping their supplies on the ground. The scribe rifled through them quickly and picked out more stimpacks, water bottles, a few cans of food, and their last Med-X. He stuffed them into his field satchel.

“We’re requisitioning these.”

“Of course, soldier,” Deacon said seriously.

The officer gave them each an appraising glance, decided she had everything she needed, and signaled to the other two to move out.

“Thank you for your service!” Deacon called after them. The scribe nodded and gave them a dismissive wave as he walked away.

Wanderer, Deacon, and C32 were quiet for a few moments until the patrol was out of earshot.

“So… Brotherhood of Steel?” C32 said, “I suppose I should steer clear of them.” He was wearing a familiar, half giddy, half relieved grin. The kind that comes when you know you’ve just cheated death.

Deacon chuckled. “Yeah, you catch on quick.” He jerked a thumb at the retreating patrol. “Not sure what’s up with those guys. But they unilaterally lack a sense of humor.”

Wanderer chimed in. “I'm not so sure about that. With their jumpsuits and little hats they look just like walking condoms.”

C32 doubled over laughing. Deacon smiled at her, one of his genuine ones. It stirred a warm, fluttering feeling in her stomach. Then he turned his gaze back down the road toward the Brotherhood patrol, smile fading.

“Next time, we move by night,” he said.

Wanderer watched the patrol as they moved on, disappearing over the horizon. Another day, another brush with death.

“Fine by me.”


	2. Chapter 2

Back at HQ, she typed up her mission report on one of the terminals the Railroad had restored to working order. Agent name: Wanderer.

 _Wanderer._ That’s how she thought of herself now. It was the latest in a long line of personas she’d taken on to survive. Minuteman officer, wasteland detective… she’d been slipping in and out of so many skins since she’d crawled out of Vault 111, but this newest one felt the truest, somehow, like she’d been preparing for it since she took her first breath of nuclear-scorched air.

The Railroad was still keeping her at arm’s length. Partly because that was just their way, and partly because she was using them to get what she wanted, and they knew it. She hadn’t been planning to throw her lot in with them, not when Shaun was out there and still needed her. But she needed the Railroad to get her into the Institute. And by the looks of it, they needed her, too.

Sneak into a highly guarded Institute outpost and steal back a Railroad prototype? No problem. Clear a raider-infested route for some runners? Easy. Secure a new safehouse? Done. And in return they’d kept her in the loop, more or less, on Operation Icarus, infiltrating the Institute.

But they hadn’t made any promises that she’d be the one to go in when the time came. Not yet, anyway. But they would, they had to. Every day, she felt like her goal was just around the corner, close enough to touch. All she had to do was make them see that she was the agent for the job.

Deacon slapped a file on the desk in front of her, jolting her from her thoughts. “Tell me what you think of that.”

Wanderer opened the folder. It was labeled _Mick “Pretty Boy” Crowley_. A Triggerman lieutenant who was gunning for more power in Goodneighbor. But there was something familiar about the name…

“He’s a ghoul. Pre-war,” she said. “Looks like he hasn’t changed much. He was using that same moniker in my time. He was in the papers once a month near the end. A good-looking guy back then.”

“Yeah? And I always thought the name ‘Pretty Boy’ was ironic.”

“I’m sure it is now.”

“Know anything else about him that isn’t in there?” Deacon asked, nodding to the file. He leaned closer to read the file over her shoulder, his presence warm and comforting. Having him so close could be distracting, which was a notion she didn’t like to dwell on. No need to make things more complicated than they already were. The post-Apocalyptic world was a weird-ass place, but damn, sometimes she felt like she had the most complicated life in the Commonwealth.

“No, the Boston underworld wasn’t really my scene back then.” Wanderer scanned the file again. Crowley was touting the anti-synth sentiment in Goodneighbor pretty hard, kidnapping suspected synths off the street. Recently, his men had taken a synth the Railroad was escorting out of the Commonwealth. Killed two agents.

Mayor Hancock turned a blind eye to Railroad operations on his turf, but the whole Commonwealth feared synths. They couldn’t afford to let Crowley use that terror to strengthen his hold in Goodneighbor. As things stood now, it wouldn’t take much to trigger a full-on witch hunt.

“This is bad news for us,” she said.

Deacon snorted. “Tell me about it.”

Wanderer skimmed further down the page, looking over Crowley’s M.O. He ran his outfit like a prewar gangster, fancied himself a gentleman. He had a weakness for girls and old world hobbies.

Wanderer stood up suddenly. “Deacon, is this case ours?”

“Not yet. Why?”

“I think I can get us in.”

“Undercover? You sure? No offense, but you’re more of a heart-on-your-sleeve kinda gal.”

“I can’t get a lie by you, maybe. That doesn’t mean I’m a bad liar.”

“Hmmm.”

“Deacon, I can do this.”

He nodded once. “That’s all I needed to hear, boss.”

Of course Deacon had come along with this case, exactly what she needed, when she needed it. And of course, he trusted her to see it through. Trust was rare in the Commonwealth, and near impossible to come by in the Railroad, but Deacon seemed to have total faith in her. She was grateful as hell for it.

This would be the break she needed. Right now, she was a heavy-in-training, a fighter, not assigned to undercover missions. But if she could infiltrate the Triggermen and bring back those synths, they’d see she was good for more than that. They’d let her try to save her son.

Still, Deacon never did anything without an agenda. She didn’t know what exactly he was planning, but it felt like he was priming her for Operation Icarus, and she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Wanderer let Deacon take the lead. In the field, she almost always did the talking, but HQ was Deacon’s forte. He kept his opinions to himself about most things, but he had the boss’s ear, and everyone knew it. When he advised Dez, she listened.

Desdemona was leaning over a map of the Commonwealth in the situation room, moving pieces across the board.

“Dez!” Deacon called, sauntering in. “You’re gonna love this.”

“I doubt that,” she said, straightening and crossing her arms. “But let’s hear it.”

“How about you let Wanderer and I take the Crowley case?” he asked, smile as broad as a Vault Tec salesman’s.

Desdemona’s eyes flicked to Wanderer. “Not happening.”

“Come on, you need us on the ground there. The Railroad needs Goodneighbor to be a safe place to operate again. The Den’s there.”

Dez watched them, hands on her hips, eyebrows raised, not buying a word he was saying. This wasn’t how Wanderer had imagined the conversation going. “I know the Den is there, Deacon. But now isn’t the time to take back Goodneighbor.”

“Now is the perfect time. If we don’t go in now, we leave the rest of those kidnapped synths for dead.”

That got to her. Desdemona leaned over the map again, not meeting Deacon’s gaze. “You want to go in undercover? The op is set for tomorrow night. You’d have no time for prep, or a proper debriefing.”

“We’d have time enough. We can pull it off. Promise.”

“Absolutely not. I know you can create a cover in a pinch, but the Wanderer hasn’t proven herself. It’s not worth scrapping a perfectly good op.”

“Perfectly good? Dez, the current plan is to pull one synth out. I know Crowley has more. You know it. Send Wanderer and I in, and we’ll infiltrate Crowley’s gang, pull everyone out. No ambush in the open, the only agents you’d be risking are the two of us.”

“Two of our top agents. You’re making a lot of promises, but you don’t even have proof that the rest of the kidnapped synths are still in Goodneighbor, and we don’t have eyes in Crowley’s lair. You’d be flying blind.”

“Have we ever let you down before?” Wanderer asked.

Desdemona swiveled to face her. “No, but that’s no reason to start making reckless decisions.”

“But—”

“No. We have a good team on the case. They’ve been preparing this op for months. We’re not changing course now.”

“Dez – ” Deacon tried to jump back in.

“The agent on the case calls the shots, Deacon. Final word.”

Deacon and Wanderer exchanged a look. It occurred to her that Deacon might have been the one spreading the rumor that Dez always listened to him. She really needed to remember to take everything she heard about him at HQ with a grain of salt. Or fifty.

“You’re both dismissed.”


	3. Chapter 3

Desdemona had shut him down. That was new. Though to be fair, Deacon _was_ off his game. Being away from HQ for so long had left him a little out of the loop, so he hadn’t had a lot of time to prepare on this one.

“Well, that didn’t go quite as I’d hoped,” he said as they stepped out of the situation room and into the Old North Church catacombs.

“You’re losing your touch, partner,” Wanderer said.

Deacon gasped. “Never. Take it back.”

“Not until you deliver.”

She was watching him with her on-the-hunt smile, ready for whatever he had up his sleeve. He was still getting used to that.

Partners had never worked out for Deacon before. Once agents learned that he was the Railroad’s intel guy, they tended to be keyed up around him, like they thought he was keeping notes on them, too. And, well, he was. Yeah, it’s not like making friends was a special skill of his. Deacon had never felt that chemistry in the field, the bond between agents that he’d seen at work in their best teams.

Until Wanderer, that is.

“Well, asking nicely didn’t work. Guess we better throw in the towel,” he said.

“Guess so. Unless you have a Plan B.”

He smirked. “You know me well. Plan B: let the agent on the case call the shots. We just have to convince him to do things our way.”

“And you know who this agent is?”

“Please, you have to ask?”

“Are you two conspiring back here?”

Deacon and Wanderer jumped at the voice, startled until they realized it was Glory who had spoken.

It was easy for Deacon to slip from high alert to feeling at home at HQ—probably too easy. But he had to relax a little somewhere. He couldn’t spend every day of his life either looking over his shoulder or watching the Wanderer’s back. Keeping both of their asses alive was no easy job; they each had a reckless streak that got the better of them from time to time. He loved that about her, about them, but it made his job damn hard. It also made him appreciate their stints at HQ, where she was as safe as a person could be in their line of work.

Wanderer gave Glory a disarming smile. “Do we look like the conspiring type?”

“Yes, actually, exactly like. You had your heads together, whispering suspiciously and everything.” Glory leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms, shaking her head. “And you call yourself spies.”

“I would never call myself a spy. That would completely defeat the purpose,” Deacon objected.

“Seems to me like you two are gunning for trouble,” Glory said, pretending to be absorbed in cleaning her fingernails.

“You know it,” Deacon said.

“Nice. You need a second heavy?”

“Not sure we need anyone shot to pieces with a minigun on this one, but thanks.”

Glory scoffed. “Every job needs a guy shot to pieces with a minigun. You two don’t want to have a good time? Fine. Forget I asked.”

“Thanks anyway, Glory,” Wanderer said.

Glory waved a hand. “Anything for you, Wanderer. You kids have fun. I’ll keep your little chat quiet, even if it was shady as hell.”

“I’m Deacon’s partner now. ‘Shady as hell’ kinda comes with the territory.”

“Ha! Truer words were never spoke.”

Deacon nodded to Wanderer, signaling that they should keep moving. He mussed up Glory’s hair as they walked past. “Later, killer.”

She punched him in the shoulder. Glory didn’t pull punches, even when she was goofing around.

“Oww. Owwww,” he protested loudly, rubbing his arm.

“You baby,” she called after him, smiling.

“Good seeing you, too, Glory.” He grinned back.

“So, Dez won’t be suspicious when we mysteriously disappear?” Wanderer asked him after they rounded the corner.

Deacon shrugged. Dez wasn’t going to like what they were about to do one bit, but it had to be done. The clock was ticking to convince her to assign Wanderer to the Institute job. Right now, it was more important that she see Wanderer’s true potential than it was for the two of them to like each other. “Probably, but she knows we won’t do anything stupid.”

“I have to ask... we’re not doing anything stupid, are we? Dez said they’ve been preparing for months.”

“Yeah, scoping out the territory, gathering info. Too bad we don’t know anyone with access to that kind of intel.”

“Right, so it’s just me in the dark.”

Deacon hooked an arm around her shoulders. “Not to worry. I’ll catch you up on the way to Goodneighbor. Think of it as a pop quiz.”

“A pop quiz where people die if you give the wrong answers.”

Deacon frowned. “Is there another kind?”

“I suppose you know we’re both in for an earful when this was over.”

Oh, he knew it. Agents weren’t supposed to cross paths in the field, and they definitely weren’t supposed to swipe missions from each other. But sometimes you had to play a little dirty. Deacon was ready to bend a few rules to their breaking point if it meant keeping the Railroad afloat for a little longer. And he liked to think Dez kept him on a loose leash because she knew he did his best work outside the straight and narrow.

“Pack your bags and let’s hit the road, boss.”


	4. Chapter 4

“This is going to be fun,” Deacon said. Wanderer was inclined to agree with him. They were holed up in Hotel Rexford, taking stock of the disguises they’d scavenged from HQ and Deacon’s Goodneighbor smugglers. A sharp black and white tux outfit for him, and for her a lush black A-line dress with a scoop neckline. Both were made with ballistic weave, but felt smooth as silk to the touch.

Wanderer looked over the accessories Deacon had found for her: elbow-length, soft black gloves, a thick pearl necklace, a bangle studded with diamonds, and a complete make-up kit. She felt Deacon watching her as she lifted each precious object, turned it over, and carefully set it back down. Everything looked pre-war, shining and new.

“Good work,” she said.

“Nothing but the best for you, partner. Now go out there and be the biggest, beautifullest distraction you can be. I’ll be right behind you,” he said, gathering up his disguise.

“Let’s suit up, then. I’ll see you downstairs.”

“Not if I see you first,” Deacon said as she pushed him out the door.

Alone, Wanderer turned back to the outfit laid out on the bed, a new skin waiting for her. Deacon had been right back at HQ: she wasn’t a great liar yet, not as good as he was. But she didn’t need to pretend to be someone else for this job. She would pretend she was someone she used to be. The silver-tongued wife that Nate took to galas and award dinners after he’d retuned from the front a war hero.

She hummed to herself as she got dressed, singing _Man Enough_ under her breath to calm the butterflies in her stomach.

When she left her room, she _felt_ like a new person. Her hair was pulled up and away from her face in a style that had taken her a good forty minutes to complete. Her full skirt swayed and rustled with the back-and-forth sweep of her hips. She felt ready to take on Goodneighbor’s criminal underworld, and then some. She descended the wide hotel steps slowly, feeling like royalty.

As she alighted from the staircase, a man rose from where he’d been watching her and tipped his hat. She was about to walk past him when she saw it: The perfectly styled black hair, the dark shades even though he was indoors. Deacon.

“Hey, good lookin,’” he said, voice smoother than usual. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

He took her gloved hand and pressed her knuckles to his lips. “Name’s Reginald Montgomery. But you, sweet thing, can call me Reggie.”

He looked up at her, meeting her eyes over the top of his shades. She gave him her slyest smile and her smoothest Boston socialite voice.

“I’m Holly,” she said. “Holly Golightly.”

“I love it,” Deacon said, dropping the act and sounding like himself. “Wait, I wanna change mine. How about Sixty Minute Mac. Or… Skeevy Steve?”

“Let’s get a move on, Reggie,” she said, straightening his tie and patting his chest. “We don’t want to be late.”

She drew a cigarette and holder from her handbag and held it out. Deacon pulled a gold plated lighter from his pocket and lit it as if he’d done it for her a thousand times before.

“Whatever you say, Holly.”

He took a step back, pulling his shades down over his nose to look her up and down. She posed for him, one hand on her hip, and theatrically took a pull of the cigarette, blowing the smoke in his direction. He met her eyes again and winked, then put the glasses back in place. “You clean up good, partner.”

“I know,” she said as Holly. As Wanderer she couldn’t help but think _so do you_ , but she wasn’t about to say that out loud.

Chuckling, Deacon wrapped an arm around her waist and they left the hotel lobby, ready to raise hell.


	5. Chapter 5

Deacon was most at ease when he was being someone else.

For a night, he could let go of the Railroads agent’s concerns, his desires, and instead take up the small-minded troubles of a part time crook climbing up the Goodneighbor totem pole. There was no world resting on his shoulders, no lives to save. The only things that mattered to him were style, good living, and the girl on his arm.

Deacon leaned over and said into her ear, “Did you check your pockets?”

“This dress doesn’t have pockets,” she told him.

“Really? Damn, forget I said anything.”

“Check for enemies, right? Because they’re always the last place you look.”

“I’ve used that line on you before, huh?”

“Reggie, I’ve heard all your lines by now.”

“Remind me to steal some new ones, then _._ ” He grinned.

Deacon had always liked Goodneighbor. Not just because it was a Railroad hub, but because it was a place that truly came alive when the sun went down. Goodneighbor people were the kind who did business in the dark. Like Deacon.

So the town had been built to welcome the night. Light bulbs strung on wires were slung across every major street, but not the narrow back alleyways. The neon signs of the Rexford and The Memory Den were bright and humming in the dark. Glitz and glamour, with plenty of shadows around the edges. Deacon wouldn’t have it any other way.

A trio of the Neighborhood Watch tailed them for a few strides. One wolf whistled, and another called out to Wanderer, “Hey doll, I’m a lover _and_ a fighter, if you know what I mean.”

“You can’t be very good at either with a weapon like that, pal,” she shot back, mimicking the Watchman, and Deacon felt a stab of pride. She had the man’s speech down pat.  

Two of the Watchmen hooted their approval at Wanderer’s back talk, but she was ignoring them now. One started heckling Deacon. “What’s a bore like you doin’ with a gal like that?”

Deacon didn’t respond. Insults, compliments, good ol’ heart-to-hearts, none of it stuck because they were never talking to the real him. Codename: Deacon was an array of masks, a chameleon, a weapon. He’d worked hard to make sure the man he used to be didn’t exist anymore. He made sure that no one could get at the heart of him.

But, sometimes, just sometimes, it felt like Wanderer could. She had that way of looking at him that made him feel like she could see straight through his defenses. And not in a way that reminded him he was a scumbag who didn’t deserve to walk this earth when so many good men were already in the ground. In a way that made him feel like he was worth something, not because of the good he did for the Railroad, but because she saw more to him. It made him uneasy and unreasonably happy at the same time.

“So, think we’ll turn heads at the Third Rail?” he asked. They’d need to make an entrance, get Crowley and company’s attention right off the bat.

“No doubt about that. The trick will be making Crowley approach _us_. There’s no way he’ll trust our offer otherwise.”

“Aye, there’s the rub. Got any ideas?” he asked.

“I have a few,” she said, and gave him a soft smile that made his heart skip a beat. There was something in that smile, something more than their usual _tête-à-tête_.

If she weren’t undercover, he’d think she had feelings for him. He could sense her testing out her cover in the way she talked and moved, preparing to draw the Holly persona tight around her as soon as they stepped into the Third Rail, donning the undercover agent’s surest form of protection: a cover that feels real, through and through.

But if that was all, why couldn’t he get the sound of her voice out of his head when she’d purred _I’m Holly,_ or the seductive flash in her eyes when he’d held her gloved hand to his lips, or the kiss of her hips as they brushed against his? She was becoming one damn fine liar. Or else….

No, that had to be the pre-op jitters getting to him, seeing things that weren’t there. And anyway, it was no use going down that road. He’d made a promise to himself a long time ago that he’d never get tied down again. If he did, he stopped being Deacon. If he did, he stopped being the person the Railroad needed to keep it alive against all odds.

When they arrived at the Third Rail, he opened the door to the prewar subway station that now housed the Commonwealth’s most happenin’ nightclub and held it open for her. He watched her walk through, eyes lingering a little longer than they probably should have. Damn, that walk. Had her walk always been so sexy, or was this part of her Holly Golightly act? He’d have to pay more attention to those hips later. For research.

“You gonna stand there all night, Reggie?” she asked. He lifted his gaze to meet hers, face flushing (shit, when was the last time that had happened?). He missed the beat where he’d usually give some smartass remark, so he just walked through the door after her and took her outstretched hand.

As they approached the subway stairs, a little voice in his head said, _that threshold up there, that’s the point of no return._ Normally, that little voice, that gut reaction, was Deacon’s god in an undercover op. But he had a good feeling about tonight, and there was too much at stake to bail before they’d even begun. So he pushed it aside and kept right on walking.


	6. Chapter 6

It had been a long time since she’d faced the night like this, in a kickass dress and an up-do, the whisper of cool night air on her newly shaved legs. She was wearing high heels, for Christ’s sake. She thought she’d given up this life for good, and hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it. Walking down the brightly lit Goodneighbor thoroughfare on Deacon’s arm like this, both of them dressed to the nines, it felt _good._

Deacon-as-Reggie was fine company. She liked the way he pressed his hand against the small of her back when he leaned in to speak to her, and lifted his hat so he could get close, their faces almost touching. She liked his small, gentle smile when she’d sassed the Neighborhood Watch. He was cute, too. When she’d caught him staring at her ass, she could have sworn she saw him blush.

“Evening, ma’am,” The Third Rail bouncer said, nodding to her as they entered the Goodneighbor sub station. Wanderer nodded back and smiled to herself; her disguise was really something. Ham wasn’t known for his good manners. The last time she’d been here, all she’d gotten from him was a begrudging _you’re lucky the mayor likes outsiders._

The sound of slow jazz and Magnolia’s dusky voice echoed in the stairwell leading down to the Third Rail. The dim light, the moody music, the sharp disguises, all of it filled her body with a crackling buzz, like the soft shock of static electricity. It was the same nerviness she felt before a firefight; she was ready for action.

When they reached the bottom of the stairwell and stepped into the Third Rail proper, Deacon said, “Don’t look now, but our synthnapper is behind you, second table on the left. With five goons.”

Wanderer didn’t look, but she kept an ear out in that direction. She heard the clink of beer bottles and raucous laughter. Sounded like your typical Triggermen.

“Quick, he’s looking this way. Do something interesting,” Deacon said.

So Wanderer did the first thing that came into her head, the thing that had been in the back of her mind since Deacon had whisked her from the hotel lobby. She took his face in her hands and kissed him, long and hard.

Yeah, she was coming on a little strong, but hey, they needed to make an entrance. And Wanderer hadn’t had sex in two hundred years; no one could blame her for getting a little frisky when she had the chance. Then Deacon was kissing her back, hungrily, and she couldn’t keep lying to herself. She wanted this man. She had for long while. He cradled her head in one hand, the other pressed to her back, holding her against him.

She liked the subtle roughness of his chapped lips, and the low, barely-there groan he made when she took his bottom lip in her teeth. She was obsessed with the trail of red smudges her kisses made as she moved from his mouth, to his just beneath his jaw, to his neck, lasting proof of this moment that said, _I was here, this happened, you can’t tell me it didn’t._

She lowered her hand, resting it on his chest to feel the satisfying hammer of his heart against her palm. His hand on her back wandered lower, too, until it slid over her ass and he gripped hard, startling a pleased little gasp from her. Her hips rocked forward, rubbing against him.

Her chest rose and fell heavily as he kissed the curve of her neck. Her dress had fit like a glove when she’d put it on at the Rexford, but now it felt too tight. She wanted Deacon to unzip the back, let the soft fabric fall around her shoulders, and put his hands on her bare skin.

She knew she’d better stop. Lord, how she wanted to keep going, but they had work to do. She pulled away and found Deacon grinning at her like she'd made him the happiest man on earth, and it made her heart ache because she knew none of this was real. Not for him, anyway.

“Holy hell, Holly,” Deacon said softly, a little out of breath.

“You liked it,” she grinned. She ran her hand up his chest and grabbed his tie, tugging him nearer. “Don’t lie.”

He took off his hat and leaned close to her. She could feel his hot breath on her lips when he spoke, and she opened her mouth to breathe in his words. “I loved it. And I never lie,” he said.

As uneasy as that line made her, it also left her aching to kiss him again.

But they needed to keep moving. Deacon led her to a table and pulled out a seat for her. As she sat, he told her, “Well, we got his attention.”

When Deacon turned his back to her to take his own seat, she cast a quick glance over her shoulder and met Crowley’s eyes. She smirked at him and considered winking, too, but that seemed like a little much.

“Nice,” Deacon said when she turned back to him. He hadn’t missed a thing.

He ordered a whiskey neat while she smoked. She grinned at him and took a handkerchief from her bag. “You’ve got kisses on your face still, Reggie.”

“Ah—do I?”

She half stood from her seat, leaning over the table, enjoying the feel of Deacon’s face beneath her hands again as she—a little regretfully—rubbed away the marks her lipstick had made on his skin. He went still beneath her fingers. Not stiff, just quiet, like he didn’t want to miss a moment of her touch, didn’t want to be distracted by his own breathing. Or maybe she was just imaging things. She still couldn’t tell sometimes with Deacon, what was him and what was smokescreen. Undercover, it was probably safer to trust nothing. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy his attention while it lasted.

As she sat again, Deacon started chatting, speaking as Reggie, making conversation that would seem natural to anyone looking on or listening in. As he talked, she pulled out a compact mirror (Deacon had worked a miracle—she could actually see her reflection in it!) and touched up her lipstick. Because she was still in the mood to take all sorts of advantage of her cover, she found Deacon’s leg under the table and stroked it with her foot. He almost spilled his drink. “Damn Holly, you’re feisty,” he said.

Then Deacon glanced over her shoulder and stood up. He tapped the table. “You work your magic, and I’ll be right back. I gotta take care of Guy.”

“What guy?”

“Our Guy,” Deacon said, nodding surreptitiously to a man leaning against the wall on the outskirts of the room. The Railroad agent whose team was assigned to the Crowley case, Wanderer guessed.

“Guy? That’s his name?”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t he get to choose his own name?”

Deacon shrugged. “I told him to go with Ponyboy. He didn’t listen.”

“That’s a damn shame, Reggie.”

Deacon smiled. “Later, Holly,” he said. He tipped his hat and strode away from the table. And even though she was watching him the whole time, there was a moment when she lost track of him in the sparse crowd of the Third Rail until he reappeared again beside the Railroad agent on the wall. He didn’t need a stealth boy to disappear.

Sometimes she thought he was some kind of ghost. More than once on their travels, she’d walked up to some random stranger and started talking to them, certain they were Deacon in disguise. Then she’d turn around and he’d be there, watching her with a doofus grin on his face, like she’d just paid him the biggest compliment of his life. It drove her crazy, but she had to admit it was a little endearing to see him excited—honest to God excited—about something.

“This seat taken?” a raspy voice said beside her. She turned to Crowley.

It was difficult to match him to the face she’d seen in the papers a lifetime ago. The high cheekbones were still there, and the strong jaw, but he was otherwise unrecognizable. Most of his nose was gone, as was all of his hair (a fact he’d tried to hide with a fedora). His eyes had black irises, and were yellowed and shot with red around the edges.

“Kinda,” she replied, but she met his eye and tapped her cigarette holder against an ashtray on the table. Crowley sat.

He took her free hand from where it was resting on the table and kissed it. It made her stomach twist uncomfortably, because now she was thinking about when Deacon had kissed her hand at the Rexford, eyes smiling. She had to stop herself from glancing around the room to look for him.

“So, tell me: What’s a dame like you see in a square like him?” Crowley nodded toward Deacon.

“I don’t hang with squares, Mac,” she said, taking back her hand.

“You got all dressed up, and he goes off and leaves you alone. Seems square to me.”

She looked away from Crowley and took a drag of her cigarette, casting a glance at where Deacon was standing at the edge of the room.

“He’s got business to take care of. Reggie’s on the up-and-up in this town,” she said.

“Is that so? Well, let me tell you something, doll: I’m already at the top. And look at me, a businessman, and I still make time to give a beautiful woman the respect and attention she deserves.”

He thought he was clever, smooth as silk. She knew his type. He wanted everyone to think he was suave, powerful, and important. He wanted to build a little kingdom for himself in Goodneighbor and forget the Apocalypse had ever happened. Well, she knew about the world before. What it felt like to live there, what had been lost when the bombs fell. And she hadn’t lived through two hundred years of blood and violence since those moments. She could give him back a piece of that lost, shining world. He’d want to keep her close, hear her out, without fully knowing why.

She told Crowley, “I’ve heard about you. Don’t sound like any businessman I know of.”

Crowley chuckled. “Then you ain’t from Goodneighbor, sweetheart.”

“I’ve been here long enough to know you’re trouble.”

“I think you’re the kinda girl who likes a little trouble,” he said.

Christ, he wanted to live in the Old World so badly that he was lifting his lines from a Starlight drive-in movie. Fine by her; she knew the script, too.

“You don’t know a thing about me, Slim,” she said, waving her cigarette holder at him. “But you’re right: I do like a little trouble. Only I’m not in the market for a man. I’m looking for a business partner.”

She watched him carefully. She could see him switching gears from pick-up artist to mobster. Saw him take stock of her, and decide he liked her well enough to play ball.

“Yeah?” he asked, curious.

“Not so fast, Slim. You said you’re at the top, but that’s not quite true, is it? Skinny Malone runs the Triggermen.”

Interest flashed in his eyes. “You know more than you let on, huh?”

“A girl’s gotta play her cards close to her chest around here.”

“You got that right, sister.”

Wanderer chuckled softly. She brought the cigarette holder to her lips again and breathed deep, giving him a long look like she was sizing him up. “You seem alright. Maybe we can make a deal.”

Crowley smiled, satisfied. “If we’re gonna talk business, we better introduce ourselves. Call me Pretty Boy.”

Wanderer blew a stream of smoke over her shoulder. She looked Crowley in the eyes and spoke to the man he’d been two hundred years ago. “You got it, _Pretty Boy_ ,” she said.

A wide, slow smile spread across his face. He nodded to himself like she’d passed some sort of test. “And what can I call you, doll?”

“Holly.”

“Well, Holly, I’m listening.”

She smiled at Crowley with real pleasure. She had him.

She was beginning to understand why Deacon loved this life. Why you’d become someone else, create another layer between you and the outside world, chasing that look in your mark’s eye when they began to believe exactly what you wanted them to. She’d have Crowley wrapped around her finger in no time. She felt powerful, untouchable.

It was a good feeling, but it left her on edge. Deacon had told her once, _don’t ever let your guard down. When you do, inevitably, that’s when everything goes to hell._

Wanderer knew better than to relax just yet. Working in the Commonwealth, you never could tell when things were about to go sideways, but they almost always did.

 


	7. Chapter 7

This was getting way, way out of hand. Not the job—that seemed to be going just peachy. The… other thing. The thing with Wanderer, whatever that was. Because if that hadn’t been a bona fide kiss, then it was one sexy lie. Deacon had a sixth sense for the moment when things were about to go spiraling out of his control, and this was definitely it.

But the crazy thing was, he wasn’t sure he wanted to stop it.

Deacon knew he was playing with fire, but that was a care for another time. Right now, he had a job to do. Deacon settled next to the other Railroad agent, leaning against the wall beside him. Guy was in Goodneighbor camo: a black vest and slacks, shirt sleeves rolled up, Trilby hat pulled low over his eyes. Looks like the Railroad was hitting the town in style tonight.

“Do you have a Geiger counter?” Deacon asked.

“Mine is in the shop, and you know it.” Guy cut Deacon a quick, scathing glance. “You’ve always been a son of a bitch, Deacon, but poaching missions is a new low, even for you.”

He was angry. Alright, Deacon could work with that. People were easier to push around when they were worked up.

“That’s not what I’m here for, Guy.”

He scoffed. “Right, so why are you here?”

“I’m here to tell you about my Lord and Savior, Atom Bomb.”

“Cut the shit. I’m not in the mood.”

“You got it, boss.” He took out a cigarette and lit it, took a drag. He offered it to Guy, who didn’t move. “You wanna look like two guys in an argument, or two guys having a friendly chat over some smokes?”

Guy snatched the cigarette from him and took a long pull, breathed out a mouthful of smoke. When he spoke again, he kept the heat out of his voice. “You were saying?”

Deacon lit another cigarette for himself. “You know Crowley has been kidnapping people for months. If you let me and Wanderer in, we can walk away today with all the synths, not just the one we have specific intel on.”

“Unless we only have intel on one because there is only one.”

“I don’t believe that for second. Do you?”

Guy sighed. He didn’t answer.

Deacon leaned on him a little harder. “There’s something off about this op, and I think you can feel it, too.”

Guy took another pull of his cigarette. “Say I do let you in, then what? You want me to tell Desdemona when this is over that it was all my idea? That I invited you two here?”

“Hey, I like that idea,” Deacon said.

“I’m sure you do.”

“We deliver a perfect op for you, you keep Wanderer and me out of the dog house. Seems fair.”

“You really want me to lie to Desdemona?”

“I’d never ask you to do that.” Deacon held a hand to his chest, affronted. “We’d just be playing fast and loose with the truth, that’s all.”

Guy was shaking his head. “You’re a shady bastard, you know that?”

“I feel like you’re trying to insult me, but being a shady bastard is literally my job.”

“All I’m saying is, if I were Desdemona, I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you.”

“You don’t know Dez. She can throw me pretty far.”

Guy glanced sideways at him again, tried to look him in the eye this time. That glance that said _I can’t tell if you’re full of shit or not._ It was the half a chance Deacon needed. The doubt was there, the hook was set. All he had to do was reel in his catch.

Deacon loved this kind of fight, the battle of wits. It was a fight he almost always won.

“Just let Wanderer work. If she doesn’t have Crowley eating out of her hand by the time she leaves, you say the word and we’ll walk.”

Guy paused to watch Wanderer. She’d win him over. Crowley had already sought her out. He was sitting across from her, leaning over the table toward her like she had an irresistible pull. She was leaning toward him, too, watching him with a cunning smile, cigarette holder held jauntily in the air. She turned her head away from Crowley to take a drag, meeting Deacon's gaze from across the room. Her lips curved into a sly little grin, and his heart stuttered. He thought of those clever lips tracing a line of fire down his neck. He quickly turned back to Guy.

“We’re not here to make your job harder, Guy. But this is the only chance we’re gonna get to help those synths.”

He could see Guy weighing his options. If he took Deacon’s offer, he got his team out of the line of fire and saved a few more synths to boot. But that only happened if Deacon and Wanderer delivered. If the op went belly-up now, he’d have to explain to Dez why he threw months of prep out the window, put two of HQ’s top agents in harm’s way, and abandoned a synth in need. Hell, even if they did deliver, Guy would still have to explain all that to Dez. Not a great choice if you were trying to stay off her shit list.

It was a hell of a risk any way you sliced it, but Deacon knew that the Railroad wouldn’t survive much longer on small risks, not when the whole damned deck was stacked against them. They were slowly dying; only bold strokes would change their fate now. And Guy knew it, too.

“Yeah, all right. You’ve got your shot. You know the exit plan?” he said at last.

“Sure do.”

“I should have known.” Guy shook his head again, but his voice was kinder now. “We’ll keep the motor running for you. You two do your thing.”

“You’re my hero, Guy.”

“Whatever, man.” Guy dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out with his shoe. He pushed off the wall and walked away, disappearing into the gloom at the corners of the club.

Deacon didn’t get along with every member of the Railroad, but he felt a deep kinship with all his fellow agents. Down to a man, they were prepared to do the right thing, hang the cost. Even if it meant admitting they were wrong, or looking like an ass in front of the boss, or getting hunted down like dogs by an Institute courser. Didn’t matter if they liked Deacon personally, they were his people.

As he watched Guy’s silhouette meld into the shadows at the corners of the Third Rail, Deacon sent up a prayer to anyone who might be listening that this gambit he and Wanderer were running didn’t get Guy killed. If it did, he wouldn’t be the first good man Deacon had unwittingly talked into an early grave, and God knows he wouldn’t be the last.


	8. Chapter 8

Crowley was _boring_. Triggerman bosses who claimed to be (or were) mobsters since before the war were like that, trying too hard to be everyone’s notion of a cocksure gangster. Wanderer was relived when Deacon joined them at the table.

“This is Pretty Boy,” she told him.

“What gives, babe? I told you I can get us an audience with Skinny,” Deacon said, scowling.

“They’re my caps, Reggie. I decide how we spend them,” she replied. She could practically see Crowley’s ears perk up. _Caps, you say?  
_

Deacon’s “big three” for predicting people were caps, beliefs, and ego. Most people were motivated by a messy cocktail of all three, but Deacon was betting they could hit Crowley in the caps. It would take less convincing to get him to bite, and their intel said he was hard up for funds at the moment.

Their con was simple: she was a wealthy out-of-towner looking to enter the Goodneighbor crime scene, on the prowl for a gang to back. Deacon was her partner in crime, a small time con man looking to move on to bigger, better business.

She turned to Crowley. “This is Reggie Montgomery. He’s been showing me the ropes in Goodneighbor, like I said.”

“Yeah? I heard about you, Montgomery. Know your way around the block, huh?” Crowley said. Of course, Deacon had chosen a carefully seeded cover for this mission. No decision he made was truly random.

“Sure do,” Deacon said, pulling up another chair, spinning it around, and taking a seat. “Look, no offense Pretty Boy, but I don’t think you’re the man we want for this. You got a... reputation.”

Crowley’s eyes narrowed. Wanderer explained, “They say you take people in the night.”

“That’s what they’re saying about me? That I take people?” he asked, indignant. “I take monsters off the street, doll. Monsters wearing men’s faces.”

Deacon said, “Anyone can say that. Doesn’t mean you aren’t just kidnapping people and saying they’re synths. We don’t want any part of kidnapping. It’s not a good business.”

Crowley’s henchmen had drifted closer. They were sitting one table over now, watching her and Deacon with interest.

Crowley glared at Deacon, then turned to her and said, “I ain’t a kidnapper. I care about this town. I’m making it safe.”

Wanderer looked at Deacon and shrugged. “I believe him.”

Deacon paused, like he was thinking it over. Then he said, “Fair play. Someone’s gotta do the dirty work, I guess. Hancock’s all talk.”

Wanderer shot him a sharp look. She knew what he was at, aiming to make Crowley uncomfortable in the Third Rail, pressuring him to take them to his hideout without bringing up the idea himself. But he was pushing too hard. No one wanted to be caught talking smack about Mayor Hancock in Goodneighbor, and normally no one was reckless enough to do it in the Third Rail, right under his nose.

Something had lit up in Crowley’s face, though, something hungry and alert, like Deacon had spoken his deepest thoughts out loud.

Every big player in Goodneighbor who wasn’t on Hancock’s payroll—and a few who were—was waiting for the day Goodneighbor got a new mayor. Every one of them thought he or she might take Hancock’s place. Crowley wanted it, bad, she could tell.

But he didn’t trust them enough to let them know it. He leaned back, spreading his legs wide and crossing his arms over his chest.

“I don’t know anything about that,” he said, an edge in his voice.

They were losing him. Wanderer forced herself to taken an even, natural breath, in and out. They were bound to make a misstep or two. But the ball was in her court, and she couldn’t think of a thing to say to ease the tension.

There was an awkward beat of silence. In it, she heard Magnolia’s song _Train, Train_ starting up, and she knew what she had to do to keep Crowley on the hook, as surely as she could sense the next beat of music in a melody.

She leaned back too, acted like she hadn’t quite been listening the conversation, and said, “God, I love this song.” She turned to Crowley. “Rumor has it you know how to move. You wanna dance, Pretty Boy?”

That flash in his eye. Dancing would be her secret weapon, ridiculous as it sounded. There was a lot of chatter about Crowley’s love for it, even before the war, but he rarely got to indulge that particular vice nowadays for want of a partner. Turns out dancing lessons were a rare thing this side of the Apocalypse.

If someone had asked her which pre-war skills she thought would come in handy after nuclear near-annihilation, she wouldn’t have guessed her love of swing, but here she was. The Wasteland was a wacky place.

Crowley was grinning at her like an overexcited schoolboy. “You know how to dance, Holly?” he asked.

Wanderer smiled. “What do you think, Pretty Boy?”

They both stood, and Deacon half rose from his chair “Holly—”

She put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him gently back down. There was a moment when she thought about kissing him again, a moment when he tilted his face up to hers and it took all her willpower to pull away. Tonight wasn’t about her—Or… Holly. She had to remind herself that it wasn’t _her_ Deacon was talking to, touching, kissing.

“It’s just a dance, Reggie,” she said.

She let her hand linger, fondly trailing her fingers across his chest as she stepped away. He watched her with this small smile she couldn’t quite read. She wasn’t sure if he thought she was playing this right with Crowley or not, but she had to follow her gut.

So she put a hand on Crowley’s arm and led him away from the tables, to the foot of the stage. The Third Rail didn’t have a dance floor—it had never needed one—but there was an open space between Magnolia’s stage and the first row of tables that would do.

Crowley put one hand on her waist, and took her hand with the other. Wanderer readied her feet. They were getting looks from the other Third Rail patrons, and if Wanderer weren’t undercover, she might have felt a little silly. Most of these people were here to drink themselves stupid after another day of hard living, or do some dirty dealing. She and Crowley were about to look like happy fools. But this job was meant to test her instincts undercover, and she wouldn’t let herself get distracted.

She and Crowley started moving on the same beat of music, and she felt the _click_ of being matched with an equally talented partner. She felt like she was back in the pre-war dance halls where she’d gone with friends, and then with Nate, to blow off steam during her law school days.

It would have been fun, if she weren’t dancing with a murderer. She hadn’t forgotten the two agents Crowley had killed, or that he was terrorizing innocent people. But if she wanted the Institute job, she’d have to get used to cozying up to folks with blood on their hands.

She was a little out of practice, but she matched Crowley step for step. She pivoted her feet and swiveled her hips more than she needed to, because she was pretty sure Goodneighbor had never seen a woman who could move like she could, and she’d always been a bit of a showoff at heart. And, maybe, because she was certain Deacon was watching her.

When Magnolia’s voice faded away, she and Crowley came to a sharp halt in unison, her full skirt spinning around her.

“Not bad, Holly,” Crowley said.

“Not so bad, yourself, Pretty Boy,” she shot back.

Crowley followed her as she returned to their table. The ruse had worked; he was at ease again, smiling to himself. He’d actually had fun. In post-nuclear Boston, that was a rare gift.

Crowley took off his suit jacket and slung it over his shoulder before he sat. He said, “I’ll tell you what, kids. Maybe we can work something out. Problem is, I gotta like the people I do business with.” He pointed to her. “You, I like.” He jerked a thumb at Deacon. “Him, I don’t. He talks too much, and I don’t trust a man who can’t look you in the eye when he’s talkin’ to you.”

“Now, wait a minute—” Deacon began.

“Do we need him, Holly?” Crowley interrupted him.

She wanted to say yes, _yes,_ I need him. Because the thought of going undercover on her own frightened her more than she’d realized. She knew Deacon wouldn’t _really_ leave her alone with Crowley and his henchmen. He’d find a way back in the game, out of sight. But with him at her side, she felt unstoppable. Alone and out of her element undercover, she wasn’t sure what would happen. And, hell, she already missed his arm around her waist and his soft flirtatious words in her ear and his mouth on hers.           

But Crowley would never trust her if she said yes, and she was starting to see that Deacon had been a couple steps ahead of her the whole time, that he’d been pushing Crowley away because Crowley was never going to take two strangers back to his carefully hidden hideout. But, if she was clever, he might take one. So she said, “No.”

Deacon held up his hands. “Come on, babe,” he said. His earnest, pleading tone was decidedly un-Deaconlike, but it still tugged at her heart a little.

“Sorry, Reggie,” she said. Crowley shot Deacon a leering grin.

Deacon stood up. “You can’t cut me out!” he shouted, starting toward Crowley.

Crowley nodded to one of his men, who stepped forward quick as lightning and punched Deacon in the face.

She was on her feet before she knew what she was doing, but recovered her cool in time to force herself to stay put. Crowley was up, too.

Deacon had doubled over, hand over his nose, blood streaming between his fingers. “That was unnecessary!” he said, anger and fear in his voice, but he gave her a quick thumbs-up, so fast she barely caught it. _I’m good._

The music was gone; Magnolia had stopped mid-song. Conversations had hushed, and people were staring.

“Oi! Take it outside! There’s no fighting in here,” Whitechapel Charlie called from behind the bar. A couple of Neighborhood Watchmen moved at the edge of the room, ready to step in.

Crowley nodded to his men again. Two of them grabbed Deacon under the arms and pulled him upright. He’d be in bad shape if they got him outside alone. He’d have to run or take a beating in order to keep their cover intact, and Crowley’s men didn’t look like they were planning to give him the chance to run.

She met Deacon’s gaze, willing him to say the code phrase that would call off the op. He didn’t say a word.

He wanted her to keep her cover, fine. But she wasn’t going to do _nothing._ She put a light hand on Crowley’s elbow and leaned toward him. It was the kind of gesture people didn’t make anymore, that soft meaningful touch that says _I need to tell you something_. She could feel the memory of people chatting in crowded rooms, happy and idle with a champagne flute or whisky tumbler in hand, pass from her to him. He leaned closer to her reflexively in response to her touch. She could make him listen to her, make him leave Deacon alone, she was sure of it.

But she still had her eyes on Deacon, and as soon as she opened her mouth he gave her this subtle half shake of his head, _no_ , so she held her tongue. As much as she hated the thought of leaving him to fend for himself, she wasn’t going to second-guess Deacon in an undercover op. So she stood there, watching him with a sinking feeling as two of Crowley’s henchmen manhandled him toward the exit, a third following close behind.

“Don’t worry about him, Holly,” Crowley said. It took all her effort not recoil from him. “My boys’ll teach him some manners. Now let’s blow this joint and go somewhere classy.”

She followed him up the stairs, but she stopped just inside the subway station exit. If Deacon was risking life and limb this very minute, she wasn’t going to go anywhere with Crowley unless she knew they were headed in the right direction.

“Hold up a minute. Where are we going?” she asked. 

“You wanna be partners? You should see my home, meet my boys,” Crowley said.

“Pretty Boy…” one of Crowley’s men said in a warning tone. He glanced at Ham, who was watching them closely.

That would be Hangman, Crowley’s second in command. Deacon had described him as “a shrewd little fucker with no personality,” and had pegged him as the one most likely to give them trouble.

Crowley shot Hangman a silencing look, and then turned back to her.

But Hangman wasn’t going to let it drop. “We shouldn’t go home. We should go somewhere else if yous wanna talk.”

“You questioning me?” Crowley demanded, rounding on him.

Hangman’s eyes went from Crowley to her. His face was an open book—he _really_ didn’t like her.

“I’m trying to look out for ya, Pretty Boy. Ditch the girl; she’s up to no good.”

“Sure, sure,” Crowley said. He reached out a hand toward Hangman, who tensed. Crowley rested the hand on his shoulder and gave him a congenial pat. Hangman’s shoulders relaxed. He smiled. Crowley smiled back.

Then he drew his pistol and blew half Hangman’s face off.

Wanderer jumped at the gunshot and the warm spray of blood. Hangman’s body fell to a heap on the floor. Wanderer felt a cold, prickling sensation in her toes and fingers, a mix of fear and adrenaline, urging her to run.

She still hadn’t gotten used to the casual violence of the Wasteland. Facing down raiders in a gunfight was second nature to her now, but this—chatting and dancing one minute and wiping a man’s brains off your skirt the next—this still felt like a punch to the gut.

“Get someone to clean this mess up, Ham,” Crowley said, stepping over Hangman’s body.

Wanderer followed, heels slipping in Hangman’s pooling blood. The Triggerman behind her sniggered.

“There’s no shedding blood in the Third Rail,” Ham said coldly. “Hancock’s orders.”

“Then it’s a good thing we ain’t in the Third Rail, strictly speaking.” Crowley turned to the doorman. He hadn’t holstered his weapon, and Ham’s hand drifted to his own piece.

“You’re a dead man walking, Pretty Boy. Hancock doesn’t split hairs like that, and he’s not a forgiving man.”

“Fuck off,” Crowley said, signaling to his henchman. “Let’s move out, boys,” he said, even though there was only one Triggerman left.

This… complicated things. The Railroad could play it to their advantage if they let Hancock know they’d dealt with Pretty Boy Crowley for him, but if Crowley was gunning people down in Hancock’s house, then he was going off the rails. There was no telling when he might snap. And given that he’d just murdered his right-hand man over someone he’d just met, Wanderer guessed he was pretty close to snapping.

There was a word in the Crowley file that had turned Deacon on to this job in the first place, a word that had convinced him all the synths in Crowley’s custody were in mortal danger, and that ambushing Crowley like the Railroad had planned was a disaster waiting to happen. The word was _unstable._

_Highly unstable,_ according to the last agent’s report.

Crowley’s man said to her, “You have no idea what you’ve walked into, sister.”

That brought her back to herself with a snap of anger. She didn’t have to fear Crowley— fuck that. Violent shits like him were a dime a dozen in the Commonwealth. She was something rare, and she was ten times as deadly.

First, however, she had to get Crowley to lead them to the synths. She was ready to keep her head down, follow Crowley, and hope for the best. But Deacon had warned her to always stay in character, no matter what. Even when it was difficult, even when it felt like the wrong move. And Wanderer knew there was no way her cover would let that murder slide without comment.

So she said coolly, “That how you do business, Pretty Boy?”

Crowley turned to her, finally holstering his weapon. He waved a hand at the mess on the floor that used to be Hangman. “He was rude to you. And to me.”

“It’s rude to shoot a man in the face.”

Crowley laughed at that. “I hear ya, Holly. But it was time for a change.” He glanced over her shoulder at Ham, then down the subway stairs to see if the Watch was coming after them. “Look, we gotta go. You in, or not?”

The earnest look in his eye told her he really did want her on his team. And even if he didn’t trust her, if he was hiding something, she had to take the chance. “Alright. I’m in.”

The two Triggermen that had disappeared with Deacon were waiting for them outside the door. She desperately hoped they had shown more restraint than their boss, but the fact they were throwing punches inside the Third Rail wasn’t a good sign. She’d just have to trust Deacon knew what he was doing. He hadn’t called off the op, and there was no way she was going to abandon her post if he was still in the game. No use worrying about it; Deacon could handle himself.

There was no turning back now.


	9. Chapter 9

Deacon stared up at the night sky from a trash heap in a back alley, willing his limbs to work. He’d reckoned he was in for an ass-kicking; he hadn’t reckoned on getting laid into so badly that he could barely move when it was over. So far he’d managed to pathetically flail his arms and legs a bit, but he must have a cracked rib or two, because his chest was screaming in protest from the effort.

Deacon gave it a rest, panting, heart beating wildly because Wanderer was walking into the lion’s den alongside a psychopath, and she didn’t have any back up. They knew Crowley’s base was outside the city walls, but not where exactly. If Wanderer left Goodneighbor without him, he might not find her in time.

And there was no way in hell he was letting that happen.

Plus, he needed to be _doing_ something right now. Or else he’d keep thinking about Crowley’s stupid smug face when he thought Wanderer had sided with him… or about the feel of her body when she’d pressed against him, her soft, urgent, teasing mouth on his. Dear God, he may have created a monster, sending Wanderer undercover, because she was working him as well as she was Crowley.

Deacon heard the crunch of footsteps near him in the alley and froze, holding his breath. A dark shape leaned over him. _Shitfuckgoddamn_ , today was not his day. Deacon tried to reach for his gun before he remembered that the Triggermen had taken all his stuff. And his body wasn’t working right.

The shadow said, “Do you have a Geiger counter?”

“Mine is in the shop,” Deacon replied, squinting until he recognized the man standing over him. He let his head fall back and released the breath he’d been holding. “You’re like my guardian angel, Guy.”

“Don’t get used to it. Can you move?” Guy asked, as if Deacon was lying in a trash heap for shits and giggles.

“Not really. Quick, I hid a stimpack up my butt. Can you get it for me?”

Nothing. Well, there was the surly head shake, but that was par for the course with Guy. Ah well, Deacon would get a laugh out of him one day. The man was wound up _way_ too tight for his own good.

Guy extended one hand to Deacon and hooked another under his arm to lift him. “I don’t get you,” he said.

“That’s ‘cuz you’re a tight ass with no sense of humor.” Deacon managed to grab Guy’s outstretched hand and held back a yelp of pain as he pulled him up, helping him out of the trash pile.

Deacon sat down heavily and leaned against the alley wall, breathing hard and waiting for the pain to subside before he moved again. If he’d been wearing Wanderer’s Pip Boy, it felt like every damned one of his limbs would be flashing on its screen: _You’ve been crippled._ _Seek immediate medical attention._

Thinking of her spurred him to action again. He turned to Guy, who was crouched beside him. “Please tell me you brought a stimpack. Or five.”

Guy held out a stimpack and Med-X.

“I found your cache down the street. Nice job planning ahead. Too bad you couldn’t even make it out of the garbage pile.”

Deacon didn’t have the energy for a comeback. He mixed in a little of the Med-X serum with the stimpack to beef up the effects, then he stabbed the needle into his chest and pushed the plunger. Relief from the pain came almost immediately. He took a deep breath. It would take a few minutes for all his limbs to be fully restored to working order. And he was going to be sore as all hell tomorrow.

Guy was watching him. “Looks like your plan isn’t turning out so well,” he said. Deacon caught the note of anxiety in his voice. Guy was a by-the-books sort, and it had taken a leap of faith to get him to agree to this in the first place. Now he needed a little reassurance.

“No, no, this was all part of the plan.”

“Getting brutally beaten and thrown in the garbage was part of your plan?”

“Yes, believe it or not. I bet Wanderer 70 caps that they’d say ‘It’s time to take out the trash.’ Spoiler: they did.”

“Uh-huh. I suppose it was also part of your plan that I show up in the nick of time to help you out?”

“Yeah. Why, what was your plan? To sit on your ass while Wanderer and I did all the work?”

“When we were talking in the Third Rail, that’s essentially what you said I should do. You said you’d deliver ‘the perfect op.’”

Deacon leaned over and said conspiratorially, “Hey, don’t tell anyone this, but… I lie sometimes.”

“Look, should I be worried? Because it kinda seems like your plan is going to shit, and it’s barely off the ground,” Guy said, his voice rising a little. Deacon couldn’t exactly blame him. If this op failed, Deacon had a renewable “get out of jail free” card when it came to Dez. The boss had a soft spot for him, but Guy had no such luxury.

“If this is ‘going to shit’ for you, then you lead a charmed life, my friend. This is just a little hiccup,” Deacon said.

“Sure. Can you feel your feet yet?”

“Getting there.” Deacon braced against the wall and pushed himself up. Because he knew Guy needed to hear it, he said, “We’ll get those synths out safe, don’t you worry, pal.”

Guy sighed. “My team has been watching Crowley’s people. There’s no sign of the synth they were supposed to move tonight. You were right; there’s something off about this job. You and Wanderer have a reputation for getting results, so… I’m still with you. We’ll have your backs.”

Good man. “Thanks for the help, Guy. I can take it from here. See you on the other side.”

“Wait,” Guy said. He took out a rag and wet it with a water bottle. “Clean your face first. There’s blood all over.”

Deacon took the rag and rubbed his face, careful of his nose. It wasn’t broken, but it was still tender as fuck. “Is it bad?” he asked when he was done.

“A little bruising, but your stimpack on steroids should take care of that in short order. You got lucky, there.”

“Hey, if there’s one thing I know how to do in a fight, it’s curl up into a little ball and protect my moneymakers.”

Guy snorted. Naturally, he’d find the image of Deacon in fetal position getting whaled on amusing. Buy hey, anything to raise morale.

Because it was too easy to get under Guy’s skin, Deacon kept going. “In case you were wondering, my moneymakers are my face and my—”

“Yeah, I got it.” Guy held out a wrapped parcel to him, the final item from the cache he’d set up earlier. Inside were a new disguise and Deacon’s good pal, stealth boy. Deacon took it, turned on his heel, and headed out. He was already halfway down the alley when Guy called after him.

“Hey, Deacon…” He trailed off.

That didn’t sound good. Deacon turned back to him.

“You know Desdemona’s policy on agents… fraternizing.”

 _Fraternizing?_ He was not in the mood for this, and there was no time for it right now.

“You flatter me, Guy, but I think we should just be friends.”

Guy frowned, eyebrows drawing together. “No, I meant—”

“Good talk. See ya ‘round!”

Deacon popped the stealth boy before Guy could get in another word.


	10. Chapter 10

Outside Goodneighbor they headed east, toward the waterfront.

Wanderer felt the style and sparkle that had clung to her in the Third Rail slipping away. There was no music here, no streetlights or Neighborhood Watch. Just the scattered glow of fires from raider and super mutant camps, and the patter of gunfire in the distance. The breeze smelled of rancid meat; someone had left bodies to rot after a days-old skirmish. It was dark—that dangerous darkness where you feel an unseen predator’s eyes on you, watching from the shadows.

“Now this is more my speed,” Crowley said. He took a hit of Jet from his pocket and brought the inhaler to his mouth. He squeezed it and breathed deep.

Great. As if things weren’t messy enough already, now the bastard was high.

Wanderer was struggling to keep up with his pace. Walking the broken, refuse-ridden street in heels was a challenge, but she wasn’t going to let Crowley see her stumble. She was already vulnerable out here, and her cover was slipping. The post-war remains of downtown Boston didn’t feel like a place for smooth talking and soft skirts. It felt like a place where you got what you wanted by violence.

But Wanderer had been trekking across the Commonwealth with Deacon for months, and she knew that no matter what a situation _felt_ like, you could talk your way out of it with enough bullshit and charm.

So she kept her spine straight and her head held high. She still carried her cigarette holder and kept smoking, because she didn’t want Crowley to try to give her Jet, and because it made her feel relaxed and look poised, like she belonged here. She projected the casual fearlessness with which she’d walked these streets before the war.

But with every step she took outside of Goodneighbor, she felt her heart pulling her back, toward Deacon. She _knew_ he wasn’t dead, because no way could Deacon be taken out by some two-bit Triggermen henchmen. It just wasn’t possible—even if the odds were three to one. And because she’d never forgive herself if they’d killed him, and she’d let it happen.

But Crowley hadn’t asked after Reggie, and the others hadn’t asked about Hangman, and that had left her nervous as all hell. These weren’t your typical Triggermen who ran petty cons and played by Goodneighbor’s rules. These were men who shot each other in the open and didn’t ask questions, who made a spectacle in the Third Rail and didn’t fear the consequences.

And as much as Wanderer trusted Deacon, she also feared that she was a curse on everyone she cared about. It was a stupid superstition, but she just couldn’t shake it. All her family and friends were long dead, her husband had survived the fucking Apocalypse only to be murdered in cold blood, and even now she was failing Shaun, every day that passed and he was still in the Institute’s clutches. Anyone she’d ever loved had been brought low.

She felt helpless. This, she supposed, was the downside of undercover work. She couldn’t charge in, guns blazing, and save the day like she usually did. She couldn’t watch Deacon’s back when the heat was on, she couldn’t make _certain_ he was safe. She just had to wait, and trust, and hope to God this wasn’t the day her luck ran out.

She, Crowley, and the others approached the remains of a department store. Crowley whistled a three note tune that was clearly a code. Wanderer heard an answering tune from somewhere above them, and spotted a rifle barrel in a third story window, another sniper a floor below. There were at least three shooters above, probably more.

The realization chilled her. This was the street where Guy’s team had been planning their ambush, but Crowley’s men had already turned it into a kill zone. The Railroad had unknowingly planned an attack at the doorstep of his hideout. Deacon’s gut feeling about this job had been dead on: any fight here would have turned into a massacre for the Railroad.

And if she and Deacon didn’t play their cards just right, it still could.


	11. Chapter 11

“So, let’s see these monsters of yours,” Wanderer said, lighting up another cigarette.

She was sitting sideways on a couch in Crowley’s hideout, leaning against one armrest, her legs stretched out in front of her. Crowley was thoroughly enjoying his trip, head leaned back, arms stretched out and resting on the back of the couch. He was looking at her hair like he’d never seen anything so mesmerizing.

His gaze drifted from her coiffed hair to her eyes. “My monsters?”

She _really_ hoped he wasn’t too blitzed to remember the synths. She leaned closer to him. “Your monsters wearing men’s faces. I’d like to know if you’re really the synth catcher you pretend to be.”

He smiled. “Oh, you won’t be disappointed, Holly.” He snapped his fingers at a Triggerman standing guard near the door of the room. “Go get the one from yesterday.”

The man cast a last suspicious look at Wanderer before ducking out to do as Crowley said.

She and Crowley were left alone. She wanted to ask about the synths, and about how he’d found so many in the first place, but she didn’t know yet how to bring it up without making him suspicious. And as she was waiting, Crowley was coming down from his high, starting to get more alert. The shrewdness was coming back into his eyes. She knew she’d slipped up when he spoke first.

“So, you cut Reggie loose pretty quick back there,” he said. His voice was casual, but Wanderer knew there was more to it. He was starting to go over her story in his head, and it wasn’t sitting right. _Shit._ Deacon had told her to keep talking as much as she could, to not let the mark sit in silence unless she knew what he was thinking about, because this wasn’t a long con, and they’d have to keep things moving fast to save their cover.

She said, “Sure I did. You’ve got more clout and more people, and I’ve always been the pragmatic sort.”

“Pragmatic, huh? So why didn’t you go after Skinny Malone? He’s got more boys than me. More caps, too.”

Not even the pretense of casual conversation this time. Wanderer was pretty sure she had Jet side effects to thank for this line of questioning. Gotta love that paranoia. But she wasn’t about to let Deacon down, and she was too close now to blow her best chance at getting assigned to the Institute op. So she thought fast.

“Sure he does, but I gotta like who _I_ do business with. And you’ve got something he doesn’t.”

“What’s that?” Crowley asked.

“A vision.”

She saw that hungry spark come back into his eye. The one Deacon had stirred up at the Third Rail when he’d said Hancock was all talk.

“I knew you got it,” he said, sitting up. “Hangman never did; he thought hunting synths was a waste of time and resources. But it’s all that matters.”

“You want to make Goodneighbor synth-free,” Wanderer said, her stomach dropping. As long as Crowley had power in Goodneighbor, the Railroad would never be safe there. She and Deacon had to end this, tonight.

Crowley nodded eagerly. “I can do it, too.”

Before she could ask how, two Triggermen entered, escorting a man. He could walk on his own, but he otherwise didn’t look in great shape. He was sporting a day-old black eye on one side of his face, a nasty bruise along his cheekbone on the other side. He stumbled, trying to keep up with his escorts.

Wanderer rose from the couch and stepped closer to the synth. She carefully kept her face impassive, only vaguely interested, as they tied him to a chair.

“He looks like a man to me,” she said. The synth glowered at her, nostrils flaring, but he didn’t talk back.

Crowley was standing, too, just over her shoulder now. “He does.”

“So, how do you know he isn’t?” she asked, hoping Crowley would let slip how he’d tracked down the synths. Deacon didn’t think the Railroad had a leak, but in order to bust a Railroad op, chances were Crowley had more than dumb luck on his side.

But instead of giving her a straight answer, Crowley grinned. He walked over to the synth, grabbed a handful of his hair and tilted his head back. He said, “I got my ways. But you have to open ‘em up to know for sure.” The synth’s breath quickened.

“You wanna watch?” Crowley asked her, that hungry look giving way to wildness in his eyes.

Time to move up their timetable. She was _not_ about to let that happen.

“Watching isn’t really my thing, Pretty Boy. I like to be part of the action,” she said.

Crowley looked her up and down—trying to guess if she had the guts to kill a man, probably. He sat back down on the couch, smiling. “Be my guest. There’s more where he came from.”

Wanderer propped one foot on the couch and slid her hand beneath her skirt to where Deliverer was strapped against her thigh. Crowley froze, unsure of what was happening—if she was drawing some weapon on the synth, or on him. His hand went to his holster, too slowly. In that moment of confusion, she aimed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger in one swift movement.

She spun, nailing the Triggerman behind her in the heart while he was still gawping at the bloody mess she’d made. The soft _thck thck_ of her silenced 10 mm pistol, the splatter of blood, and the muffled thud of a body hitting the floor was the only evidence of the carnage she’d made. No one outside this room would hear it.

She swung the gun around to take aim again. The second Triggerman threw his hands up and said in a rush, “DoyouhaveaGeigercounter?”

She lowered the gun, eyes wide. “Jesus _Christ_ , Deacon. I nearly blew your head off!”

“You’re supposed to say, ‘mine is in the shop,’” he said patiently with a smartass grin, like he hadn’t been a heartbeat away from being accidentally murdered by his own partner.

Even after all their time together, she still couldn’t get a read on him sometimes. She didn’t know if it was just his nature to live on the edge of death, or if he trusted in their bond that much, that he knew she’d turn on a dime at one word from him. Either way, he certainly kept her on her toes. But, _fuck,_ that was a close call.

The plan if they got split up had been to meet up again _after_ she’d dispatched Crowley. She’d keep Crowley and his men looking the other way while Deacon snuck into their ranks and found where they were keeping the hostages, so they’d know the synths were safe before they burned their cover and raised hell. Something had made him change course.

“What if I’d shot you first, dumbass?” she demanded, angry. If she’d shot him… she didn’t even want to think about that.

“Hey, how was I supposed to know you were gonna murder everybody before I got the chance to tip you off I was here?”

She took a deep, unsteady breath and shook her head, looking down at her hands. They were shaking from the adrenaline of killing two men in the blink of an eye, and from fear for the man she’d almost killed.

Deacon stepped closer and took her hands in his, squeezing tight to steady them. “Hey, now. Keep your head in the game. I’m okay. No harm done.”

His voice was soft and reassuring, and there was something raw and unguarded in his tone. He’d never spoken to her like that before. She looked up at him to find his face close to hers.

He put a hand to her face, making sure she looked him in the eye, tilting his head forward until his shades slid down his nose a little and she was staring into his eyes. He must have seen the resolution come back into her gaze, because one side of his mouth quirked up.

“You good?” he asked. She nodded, and he stroked her cheek softly with his thumb.

A voice said from beside them, “Can…. can you untie me now?”

Deacon dropped his hands and stepped away quickly. They both turned to the synth in the chair.

“Yeah, of course,” Deacon said. He walked over to him and started working on the ropes.

“Are you Railroad?” the synth asked. “That Geiger counter thing you said… the others talked like that.”

Deacon’s head snapped up. “A9-55?” She recognized that designation. It was in the Crowley file; this was the synth he’d taken from the Railroad.

The man nodded. “That’s me. Boy, am I glad to see you. I thought I was dead for sure this time.”

“Do you know where the others are?”

A9 nodded. “Yes, I can show you.” He stood up and rubbed his wrists as Deacon cut him free.

He was beat up pretty bad, and he’d been brought into this room to be murdered by Crowley, but he was keeping a level head. Desdemona might try to recruit him for the Railroad if he was willing to stay in the Commonwealth after this mess.

Deacon said, “Hey, partner. I almost forgot. I brought you a little something.” Wanderer cocked her head, curious.

He held up a pair of black sneakers and grinned.

“Thank God for you, Deacon,” she said, kicking off her heels and taking the sneakers. She put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she slid them on.

Then the three of them headed out, A9 giving directions. Deacon scouted ahead to make sure the coast was clear, signaling to them when it was safe to move.

Deacon, as usual, had perfectly dressed for the part he was playing. He was wearing suspenders and slacks now, and a newsboy cap. He had a Tommy gun slung over his shoulder, and he even walked like the Triggermen did, a shiftless, cocky swagger. Deacon _never_ half-assed a disguise.

A9 led them to a room that looked to be a storage closet. “They keep it locked,” he said.

“Not a problem.” Wanderer reached up to pull a bobby pin from her hair.

“Allow me,” Deacon said. He held up a key with a flourish.

“How do you even know that’ll unlock this door?”

Deacon shrugged. “Let’s find out.” He slid the key into the lock, and turned it. At the sound of the bolt’s _click_ as it slid open, he raised his eyebrows above his shades: _told ya so._

“I took it off Crowley,” he explained after he’d taken a moment to relish her shocked expression.

_“When?”_

“Not telling. But we’re definitely gonna get you some pickpocket lessons, partner. You had opportunity aplenty and never took advantage.”

“I don’t need lessons. I was just… busy with other things,” she said in defense.

“Yeah, keep talking. You might convince me,” Deacon said, grinning as he stepped through the door.

Inside the room, a woman and an older, bearded man were huddled together in a corner. Another man was seated on the floor, knees drawn up, head down. He didn’t even look up when they entered.

Deacon took stock of the room. “Where’s the rest?”

The synths in the corner exchanged a look. A9 shook his head. “Crowley killed the others.”

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Deacon said, taking off his cap and running a hand through his fake hair. “He’s taken at least ten people by our count.”

The older man said, “More than that.”

Deacon made a strangled sound. He threw the cap across the room.

It was hard to see him like this; he wasn’t even trying to hide his grief. Deacon pretended to be a hardened realist, but there was still a part of him that prepared for the worst but always hoped for the best. She knew he felt the Railroad’s every loss deeply.

Deacon said to her, “I’m glad you blew the bastard’s brains out.”

“Crowley’s dead?” the woman asked, sitting up. The man across the room raised his head to look at them.

“Yes,” A9 said, “and we’re getting out of here. These two are with the Railroad. I told you they’d come.”

Four pairs of hopeful eyes turned to her and Deacon. She was sorely glad he hadn’t called off the job when he’d had the chance. That line was going in her report: _I told you they’d come._ If they tugged at her heartstrings, they’d make Dez melt. It might convince her to forgive the two of them a little sooner than she would have otherwise.

She cast a look at Deacon and he met her gaze. She could tell he’d gotten a grip and Deacon, secret agent, was back.

Wanderer addressed the synths. “I’m agent Wanderer, and this is Deacon. What are your names?”

The three synths on the ground just stared at her. After a moment of awkward silence, A9 came to her aid. He gestured to the bearded man, “That’s K5-58,” and the woman, “and Z2-91.” He cast a careful look at the man in the corner. “And that’s….”

“Rob,” the man said angrily. “My name is Rob.”

A9 said softly, “An Institute sleeper.”

“I heard that,” Rob snapped. He looked desperately from her to Deacon, “And I’m not working for the _fucking_ Institute.”

Wanderer’s gut told her otherwise. The poor bastard didn’t even know. Or he was an exceptionally good liar.

Rob kept talking, “I’m not a synth. I don’t deserve to be here. I run a scrap shop in Goodneighbor, and I want to go home to my _wife_.”

Oh, buddy. Wanderer cast a quick glance at Deacon.

“Hey, I believe you, pal,” he said. “But right now, we’re all in this together. We’re getting out of here—okay?”

Rob nodded, latching on to Deacon’s friendly tone. “Okay. And then you’ll take me back to Goodneighbor?”

“Wherever you want,” Deacon lied. The Institute would know by now that their sleeper had been compromised. If the Railroad returned him to Goodneighbor, they’d pick him up in a hurry. The Railroad would lose another synth, possibly for good, and the Institute would glean any intel on the Railroad that Rob had. But right now, they just needed him to work with them. They would figure out the rest later.

Deacon turned to her. “I’ll take point. You got our six?”

Wanderer cocked Deliverer. “You know I do.”

Deacon gave her a quick grin. There was something in that look that stopped Wanderer short. It was full of his usual mischief, but there was something else, too. Something more intense. Something like the look in Nate’s eyes when she could see him thinking, _God, I’m glad this woman is in my life._ And she realized suddenly that during their exchange in Crowley’s room they hadn’t been undercover. And even if they had been, Deacon had ditched his Reggie disguise when he’d left Goodneighbor. There’d been no reason for his low, soothing voice and how he’d stood so close to her like he was talking to a lover, not his partner, no artifice in the gentle caress of his thumb over her cheek.

Holy shit. Deacon might actually be falling for her.


	12. Chapter 12

Normally, Deacon relished sneaking around in the night. “In and out like a ghost,” Glory had said of his M.O. She thought it was dull, but for Deacon, nothing beat the thrill of walking that thin line between unseen and seen, shadow and light.

Sneaking out of Crowley’s hideout with the four hostages in tow, however, was a different beast. It was so damn _stressful_. He’d never had to navigate a minefield of Triggermen patrols while coordinating four novices before, but he was picking it up on the go. He was learning all _sorts_ of new things tonight.

For one thing, he’d learned first hand how terrifying it was to be on the other end of Wanderer’s gun. That had been a bit of a blunder on his part (not that he was planning to admit that to anyone). But when he’d heard what Crowley had done to Hangman at the Third Rail, he’d had to make sure she was okay. If Crowley was about to lose his shit for good, Wanderer would need her partner close at hand. He’d gotten her into this mess, and he sure as hell was going to make sure she got out of it.

Not to mention, the two of them were on thin ice working this job without Dez’s permission. If anyone died—Railroad personnel, a synth—they’d be in serious shit.

Turns out she’d had things under control. Deacon wasn’t in the habit of doubting his partner. This _thing_ between them, it was flirting with disaster.

Guy had already caught their scent. Deacon wasn’t too worried about that. Yet. Guy was a straight shooter, but he wouldn’t rat them out to the boss unless he thought they were a danger. And he was just taking shots in the dark right now. If Deacon and Wanderer made a good impression with this job, he might reconsider what he thought he saw at the Third Rail.

Now, what Deacon _was_ worried about was the sweet ache in his chest when he thought of kissing her again. Because _this_ was exactly why Dez didn’t stand for agents fraternizing. It was Deacon nearly getting his head blown off because he threw caution to the wind to follow Wanderer and Crowley instead of sticking to the plan, and it was the gut-wrenching fear in Wanderer’s eyes at the Third Rail that told him she was one more thrown punch away from burning her cover.

Normally, Deacon wouldn’t sweat it. Just tamp his feelings down deep until they disappeared, and wait for hers to fizzle out. He was nothing if not adaptable. Problem was, Wanderer was one big bundle of mayhem, and sometimes Deacon had trouble keeping the pace. A “rogue element” P.A.M. kept calling her. Wherever she went, she shook things up, unstoppable and unpredictable as any rad storm.

When he’d been tailing her across the Commonwealth in those early days, he’d thought he could harness that charisma, or moxie, or luck, or whatever the hell it was that kept her alive and winning while everyone else in the ’Wealth was lining up for their brutal end. Thought he could bottle it up for the Railroad and let that magic loose at just the right moment. But damned if he wasn’t falling under her spell, too.

He’d figure out what to do about it later. Right now, he had more immediate problems.

He caught a flash of movement around the corner and pulled up short. The others stopped.

“Triggerman ahead,” he said softly.

“I can take him out,” Wanderer offered.

“Someone’s trigger happy,” Deacon said. Wanderer shrugged.

He did some quick calculations based on the patrols he’d encountered on the way in. There wasn’t much time to stash a body if they killed him, and the more bodies they left lying around, the greater the risk of someone sending up the alarm. And it wasn’t safe to back track—they’d just get cornered.

He told Wanderer, “No, we gotta bluff our way out.”

She’d already stashed Deliverer. “Okay. I’ll follow your lead.”

It still gave him pause every once in a while, how easy it was to depend on her, how they worked like they were two parts of the same mind. It was a hell of a thing. Nowadays, he didn’t even miss flying solo.

Deacon put a hand on her back, guiding her around the corner.

“Oh, hey there,” he said to the approaching Triggerman.

The patrol tipped his hat to Wanderer. “You must be Holly.”

She gave him this self-assured nod and said, “I am,” with a touch of attitude, like she was Crowley’s new second in command. The Triggerman didn’t question her, and Deacon didn’t blame him. She’d made quite the impression, traipsing around downtown Boston looking like a pre-war movie star and acting like she owned the place. His girl had style.

No, _not_ his girl. Sheesh, if he started saying stuff like that out loud, he’d get himself into trouble.

Deacon told the patrol, “Hey, friendly tip for you, buddy: I’d steer clear of the boss for a while. He’s doing… that thing he does to the synths.”

“Aw, hell. In front of the lady?” the Triggerman asked.

“Yeah, right in front of her. Better get her some smelling salts or something, stat,” Deacon said.

Wanderer cut him a look. “That’s not necessary. But you can show me to my room.”

The patrol glanced at Deacon, about to ask _why can’t you_ , but Wanderer had already taken him by the arm saying, “What a gentleman,” and the Triggerman decided to roll with it.

Deacon waited until they turned the corner, then he leaned over to check on A9 and the others. They were waiting, wide-eyed and wound up, like they weren’t sure if a friend or foe was going to round the bend. When they caught sight of Deacon, they released a collective sigh of relief. But this was no time to relax.

“Lets go, team,” he said. “Stay sharp.”

****

They made it out of Crowley’s hideout and onto the street ( _damn,_ Deacon was good at his job). He kept the others close, the five of them tucked in the shadows of the ruined building, but it wasn’t safe to stay in one place for long.

A9 asked the million-dollar question. “How long do we wait for Wanderer?”

“Don’t wait, I’m right here,” she said, stepping out of the shadows nearby and scaring the _bejeezus_ out of everyone but Deacon, who definitely stayed as cool as a cucumber. A9 clapped a hand over Rob’s mouth in time to muffle his startled cry.

“Shit, sorry,” Wanderer said.

Deacon leaned against the wall, trying to steady his breathing without anyone catching on how fast his heart was racing.

Rob growled at A9, “Don’t _touch_ me, synth,” and Deacon felt the others bristle.

“Hey now, we’re all friends here. At least until we’re home free, all right?” Deacon said. Rob quieted, and Deacon turned to Wanderer. “You caught up quick, boss.”

“I had a stealth boy tucked away in case of emergency.”

“ _Where?_ ”

She gave him a smirk that seemed vaguely familiar. “Not telling. But if you need sneaking lessons, partner, I’m happy to oblige.” Oh. She was mimicking _him._

“Cheeky, aren’t ya?”

“Who, me? Never.”

So, the whole gang was back together. Now they just had to dodge Crowley’s guards until they made the docks. Deacon peeked around the corner of the building and eyed the alleyway ahead of them, trying to gage what they were up against. Buildings on either side, windows on all three stories, and any one could conceal a sniper. Probably land mines on the ground, too, if they were lucky. Goody, he couldn’t wait.

Wanderer was beside him, cool and confident, her presence steeling him against the murder alley ahead. She said, “At least there’s cover. Things get hot, I’ll draw their fire. You keep the others out of harm’s way.”

Deacon nodded, ignoring the voice in his head saying that wasn’t a good plan at all, not when she had nothing but that dress for protection. Ballistic weave was good if you got into a tight spot, but it wasn’t what you wanted to be caught wearing in a real firefight. Tinker Tom did good work, but he had to sacrifice a little function for the sake of fashion with ballistic disguises.

Wanderer was leaning out around the corner, coiled tight, weapon drawn, looking like she was about to make a move, when Deacon caught a flash of light out the corner of his eye.

He pulled her back as a searchlight swung in their direction. He held her close as the beam lit up the corner where she’d been standing, pressing her between his chest and the wall, their breathing shallow. He could feel the hammering of her heart against his chest, and knew she could feel his, too. He was starting to doubt that ballistic weave could deflect a bullet if it needed to, because the fabric felt so _thin._ Her breasts were flush against him, rising and falling _distractingly_ with each startled breath she took.

The searchlight beam swung away and he felt her relax in his arms. Her breath was hot against his neck.

“Searchlights. Should have seen that coming,” he said, trying to keep his voice neutral.

“I owe you for that one, partner.” She was looking up at him and smiling that clever, beguiling smile she’d used on him in the Third Rail, and he realized he was still holding her and he should really let her go, but his mind kept grasping for some smartass quip that would give him an excuse to hang on a little longer.

But here he was, letting her fill his head again, while they still had a job to do, and the synths weren’t out of danger yet. So he let her go and stepped away, feeling cold without the warmth of her body against his.

Deacon said to the others, “K5, Z2, Rob, stick close to me. A9, take up the rear, and don’t fall too far behind.”

One of Deacon’s golden rules for working with runaways: always remember their designation. Always, _always_ remember it. To lots of people, it seemed like just a string of random numbers and letters, impersonal, dehumanizing. And it was, but before they took a name or a codename, it was the one constant in their lives as the Institute stripped them of their personalities again and again. That mattered. So he remembered it, called them by it, made them feel whole however he could.

They picked their way down the alley, dodging searchlights and the occasional specter of a sniper above, Wanderer keeping abreast of Deacon and the others, ready to cover them if things went south.

Deacon could make out the docks now, the dark water at the end of the street. Their ride wasn’t there. _Shitshitshit._ They couldn’t leave the shelter of the buildings if they were just going to get caught in the open with nowhere to run.

Behind him, Rob stumbled as his picked his way down the alley. A9 tried to help him up, but they weren’t quick enough to escape the searchlight swinging toward them. The angry blare of an alarm split the night. Fucking Rob. He was really turning out to be the problem child tonight.

In a flash Wanderer was beside A9 and Rob while Deacon hunkered down behind cover with his two. There were only a handful of people on patrol outside tonight, but Crowley had a lot of guys. The alley would be swarming with Triggermen in fifteen minutes or less.

The first shots came from above, through the windows. Wanderer was ready, firing back and covering her charges while the three of them found shelter from the sniper. She took out the searchlight next, shrouding them in darkness and silencing the alarm, but the damage was done.

Shadowy figures moved in the mouth of the alley. With the lights gone, it was hard to tell how many they were facing, but Wanderer and Deacon knew how to make the chaos and confusion of darkness work for them.

Wanderer said something to A9, and a few seconds later she was laying down cover fire while he bolted across the street toward Deacon.

“She says to keep moving toward the docks,” A9 told him. He glanced back to where Wanderer and Rob were crouched behind a sandbag barrier across the street. “Rob’s frozen up, though. He’s not about to leave cover any time soon.”

“Shit,” Deacon said under his breath. “Well, we can’t leave them.”

Deacon looked down at his two charges. The bearded man was curled up against the low wall the four of them were crouched behind, holding his head, taking measured breaths to keep himself from freaking out. The woman had a reassuring hand on his back, but she was crouched and tense, wild-eyed and ready to bolt.

The Railroad favored at least a one-to-one ratio of agents to packages on a job. Most synths weren’t prepared for the hostile combat zone that was the Wasteland; there was no telling how they’d react in a tricky situation. If the four of them sat here much longer taking fire, keeping everyone together would be as futile as herding cats.

And their reinforcements were still nowhere in sight. _Come one, Guy. You said you’d have our backs._

This is why Deacon preferred working solo. Jobs had enough moving parts without him having to worry about whether or not his teammates would get their shit done. He’d never had that problem with Wanderer. He knew she’d get the job done. She was always right where he needed her to be.

Watching her dodge fire with her neck, head, and goddamn precious face unprotected was riling up all sorts of mother hen instincts in him, making him want to shout, _You’re not wearing your helmet! Keep your head behind cover, for God’s sake!_ But he refrained.

Instead he brought up his machine gun and laid down some cover fire for her while she picked off their attackers. Most of his shots went wide. Deacon preferred a rifle—the Triggerman’s weapon of choice wasn’t exactly his forte—but hey, cover fire was cover fire. It didn’t _have_ to be accurate as long as the other guys were nice and scared.

To survive on your own in the Commonwealth, you had to be at least a decent shot, but Deacon wasn’t really a guns guy at heart. He preferred the cloak-and-dagger or the bullshit-your-way-out approach when he got in a tight spot. He felt a lot safer when he was running his mouth than when he was firing a gun.

Now Wanderer, she was a guns girl. A smooth talker when she needed to be, sure, but she came alive in a firefight. Fierce focus, deadly aim, she worked the kind of magic he did undercover. That balance made them a team to be reckoned with. But when she went into the Institute, she’d go in alone. She’d have to be the fighter and the spy.

“Deacon—above!” Wanderer’s voice. Deacon didn’t hesitate—he swiveled his gun to the windows above and started firing. The Triggerman that had been leaning out of a second story window ledge toppled into the street near them. One of the synths screamed, sending Deacon’s heart rate skyrocketing.

“Wanderer! You okay?” he called. They were getting pinned down pretty good now. If the gang managed to cut them off from behind, or more shooters found their way to the windows above, they’d be done for. It was tricky to access the upper floors in these pre-war buildings, but just one or two snipers could do a lot of damage with them huddled together like this.

“Where’s our ride?” Wanderer shouted back.

He’d been thinking the same thing. Deacon glanced toward the docks. _Come on come on come on._

As if on cue, three figures in familiar Railroad browncoats rounded the corner, rifles drawn. Deacon heard the thrumming of an engine as a fishing boat pulled into the docks at the end of the street. The Railroad might not have as much tech as the Brotherhood, but they got by.

The agents worked their way swiftly up the alley. Railroad agents usually ran ops solo, or in groups of two. They were stretched thin, so Dez’s policy was typically divide and conquer. But Guy knew how to use his people, and his ops had a high success, low fatality rate. So even after the Switchboard, Dez had made sure he had a full outfit at his disposal. He ran a team of four, and was damn good at it. It was no surprise that Dez had been hesitant to wrest the Crowley job from his control.

One of the heavies made their way to Wanderer to collect Rob while she covered for them. Another shepherded K5 and Z2 toward the docks.

Guy fell in next to Deacon. “Let’s move,” he said to A9.

A9 shook his head and looked to Deacon. “I’m not leaving you guys,” he said.

Deacon and Guy exchanged looks. They hadn’t come this far just to let A9 get himself killed.

Deacon said, “Let the big kids handle this one, A9. We let you down once already, I’m not letting it happen again.”

“I can handle myself.”

“I’m not gonna argue with you, you can’t—”

A9 grabbed a pistol from a fallen Triggerman and started returning fire with steady aim, nailing one gangster in the head, and another in the gut. He pivoted and fired again. Another headshot. In the _dark_. Well, shit. The guy was a crack shot.

“Fine, fine. I’ll eat my words. Just for the love of God, don’t get killed.”

“I won’t if you won’t,” A9 said, loading a new clip.

Brave, coordinated, _and_ sassy. This one was a keeper.

Guy shook his head. “This is a bad idea.”

It was Railroad protocol to remove a synth from the line of fire whenever possible, but unless Guy wanted to pick A9 up and carry him off the field, he wasn’t going anywhere. And they’d need to put down this wave of Triggermen _quickly_ if they were all going to make it out alive. They couldn’t risk the boat getting overrun. Another gun would help.

Guy shouted a warning, and Deacon turned in time to see a man emerge from the darkness, close, weapon raised. A spike of adrenaline got his body working faster than his brain. He smacked the butt of his gun into the Triggerman’s face. The man staggered back, and Deacon finished the job with two short bursts of fire.

“Tell your friends, you dead bastard! We’ll be here all week,” Deacon yelled. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, with bullets flying and his heart racing up to ninety, giddy with adrenaline, he said stupid shit like that. Even with a gun in his hands, wisecracks were Deacon’s preferred defense.

Guy gave him this half-startled look, and then he smiled ( _Yes,_ he’d finally gotten the stiff bastard to crack a smile). He was still mid laugh when a stray bullet triggered a mine nearby, blowing Guy off his feet and blasting Deacon back against a wall.

Deacon hit the wall hard enough to knock the air from his lungs and fell forward onto his knees. His ears were ringing, but, after a quick check of all his vital parts, it looked like he was otherwise unharmed. Someone was pulling him to his feet. A9 shouted in his ear, “You okay?” and Deacon nodded, still trying to catch his breath.

He looked around for Guy as the dust and debris thrown up by the blast settled. He was lying on the ground, moaning and moving his legs weakly. Deacon staggered toward him, and would have fallen on his face if A9 hadn’t been holding him up by the arm.

Guy’s head was bleeding badly, but it looked like a superficial cut. More concerning was the shard of shrapnel that had torn through his armor and was lodged in his torso.

“You alive, Guy?” he asked.

Guy snarled, “Do I look dead to you?”

That was a good sign. He had some fight in him, hopefully enough to make it to the docks. His breathing was pained, but he wasn’t gulping for air, or spitting blood, so the shrapnel hadn’t punctured a lung, at least.

“This is all part of the plan, Guy. You take one for the team and Dez can’t go too hard on you when we get back to HQ, now can she?” Deacon said. He was impressed with how upbeat and unconcerned his voice sounded.

“I fucking hate your plan, Deacon,” Guy said through gritted teeth.

“But you’ll thank me later.”

Guy just groaned in response.

Deacon edged around his cover and called to Wanderer, “Guy’s hit!”

“Hang on! I’ll be right there,” she called back.

He watched her back as she bolted across to them, keeping low in the deepest shadows. The second she was back behind cover, standing close, she asked him softly, “You okay?”

He nodded, scanning her for any obvious injury. Her hair was breaking free of her hairstyle and turning wild, she was breathing hard, but she didn’t look hurt. She took quick stock of the situation, Guy on the ground, A9 kneeling over him and watching her and Deacon expectantly, like they held all the answers.

She took a few more steadying breaths, checked her clip, and said, “Go, I’ll cover you.”

He watched her for a beat too long.

“I’ll be fine. You’re the one getting all the bad luck tonight, partner.” She grinned fondly at him. “You look like a kid whose science experiment just blew up in his face.”

“Yeah, it was a _mine_ that blew up in my face. But thanks, your concern is touching.”

She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed hard. He hadn’t realized how rattled he really was until she did that, and something tight and anxious in his chest unclenched. He wondered how many years had been shaved off his life in all the near-death scrapes he’d lived through without having someone to ground him like that.

He knelt next to Guy and signaled A9 to do the same.

“Time to go, champ,” he said, taking hold of him under one arm and sliding his other hand beneath his shoulder.

Guy glanced down and caught sight of the shrapnel sticking out of him. He groaned. “Ah, fuck. This is going to hurt.”

“Like a bitch,” Deacon agreed. Guy glared.

He nodded to A9 and they lifted him gingerly. He let out a sharp wail of pain that twisted Deacon’s stomach. _Hang in there, pal_. The last thing Deacon needed was more blood on his hands.

They gave Guy a moment to recover before they started moving. His face had gone pale and clammy. After a few seconds he said, “Okay, okay. Let’s go.”

They moved at a brisk hobble toward the docks. It was making his shoulder blades itch, leaving their backs exposed and in the open, knowing there was a firefight going on behind him. But if Wanderer said she’d cover them, then she’d cover them. He glanced at A9 and could tell he was tempted to look back, too.

“Keep moving. She’s got us,” Deacon said. They couldn’t afford to lose any time or focus. A9 gritted his teeth and nodded. Guy’s head was lolling onto Deacon’s shoulder, and Deacon nudged him hard to keep him from passing out.

Deacon felt like laughing in relief when their feet hit the wooden slats of the dock. The Railroad agents were waiting for them, guarding the synths on board and covering their escape. They helped Deacon and A9 onto the fishing boat, strong hands gripping him by the arm, holding him steady. One took Guy and ushered him away.

Another agent slid the gate shut behind them. Deacon grabbed him by the arm before he could make any signal to pull the boat out of the dock.

“Hey, hang on. Wanderer’s still out there,” he said.

The agent cast a quick look toward the alley, then over the synths on board. He bit his lip. “We can’t wait long.” There was a warning note in his voice that said, _Remember, we’re still the lead team on this op._

Deacon turned and looked for Wanderer in the shadows of the alley, but couldn’t find her. The gunfire had stopped. He held his breath, his throat tight and his head shouting at him to go in after her. Then he saw her sprinting toward them.

She vaulted over the side of the boat, half tackling him as he held out an arm to try to steady her. They both fell hard onto the deck, laughing. The motor roared, kicking into high gear as they left the dock behind.

Deacon and Wanderer lay side by side for a few minutes, hearts pounding, their breathing fast and unsteady as they tried to reign in their laughter. He reached for her without meaning to and her hand found his, her grip warm and a little too tight, like his touch was the only thing keeping her grounded.

“So this was fun,” he said.

She chuffed a laugh and sat up. She smiled wide as she looked down at him, her hair an untamed mess around her head, her face smudged with dirt, happiness radiating off her. She looked so beautiful like that, it made something sharp and painful swell in his chest.  

He lay on the ground a minute more, just looking up at her, not wanting to move or speak or even breath, afraid of doing anything to chase that smile from her face. He wanted to pause everything and keep this moment from slipping away forever. Moments like this didn’t come along every day, not in the Commonwealth, and especially not in the Railroad.

He could barely remember the last time he’d felt happy.


	13. Chapter 13

Deacon knew it was too early to call the job a success. They hadn’t reached the safehouse yet, and the Wasteland could still throw them for a loop. But he and his partner’s work was over, hopefully, and his brainspace was filling up with that post-op high after a job well done. The rush of relief and satisfaction—and the buzz of his fears and anxieties—let loose from the corner of his mind where he tucked them away during a job, in a box labeled NOT NOW.

They hadn’t _exactly_ got out clean, but hey, no deaths and four synths snatched from the clutches of a murdering psycho. The Railroad had needed Wanderer to get them into Crowley’s lair and get the synths out safe, and she’d delivered as only she could have. And he’d only had a few hours to plan the whole op. Not bad for a night’s work.

Wanderer was sitting beside him on the floor still catching her breath. The synths were huddled together across from them on the other side of the deck. It was spacious—Deacon had checked to make sure their escape vessel was large enough to fit everyone Crowley had taken. Just in case.

Wanderer asked him, “So, do you think Goodneighbor will be safe for the Railroad again?”

“With Hangman and Crowley gone, that faction should crumble pretty quick. And if they don’t, Hancock will get someone to finish the job. No way they’re getting away with the shit Crowley pulled at the Third Rail.”

She sighed in relief and leaned her head back against the side of the boat. “We did it.”

“Not bad for your first rodeo. But, just so you know, the point of most undercover ops is to _avoid_ the massive gunfight.”

“Hey, that wasn’t my fault, and you know it.”

Deacon shrugged, “Sometimes, doesn’t matter who’s fault it is. All that matters is what happens.”

She turned that over in her mind for a bit, nodded. After a minute, she said. “You think I jumped the gun on Crowley, don’t you?”

He did, a little, but… “He had it coming tonight, anyway. And I can’t _wait_ to tell Hancock he owes the Railroad a favor.”

“But I didn’t find out how Crowley was tracking down the synths.”

“Hm. Or did you?”

She gave him a flat look. “I didn’t.”

“Or… did you?”

He grinned at her. She caught on and grinned back, her sly half smile saying, _I should have known._ He didn’t have to say anything; she knew he’d gotten the intel they needed.

Yeah, he’d been eager to back her up, but Deacon had learned to take his time, even when he didn’t feel like it—especially then. He knew how to run recon in a pinch.

“You did good, Wanderer. I mean it.”

He felt her eyes on him, but Deacon wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was watching Rob. The guy was sitting on the ground, legs drawn up against his chest, head buried in his knees, rocking back and forth a little.

Deacon jerked a chin at Rob. “How’s he doing?”

Wanderer sighed. “He’s… Deacon, I think he’s starting to come around. And he’s not taking it well. He froze up back there. For a minute I wasn’t sure he was gonna make it to the docks.”

“Nothing like a brush with death to make you look back on your life and realize you’re actually a robot replacement for a murdered man, huh?”

That one was signing up for a mind wipe, no doubt about it. Some sleepers grew into their covers, knit the lies into themselves until they became a part of who they were. But, more often than not, if the Institute left their sleepers in the field too long, they had a very rude awakening.

The Institute tried to replace people, but they couldn’t simply upload the sum and substance of a human being, and there was only so much that they could gather from observation and torture. Plus, they didn’t actually _aim_ to create a full personality—they just wanted a lab rat for their experiments. So their sleepers’ memories were paper-thin—a veneer painted over their Institute directives that was _just_ convincing enough to fool friends and loved ones, barring any intense scrutiny.

When the Railroad built a synth’s cover, they did it right. Amari was an artist. She wove a new, tailor-made life together using the Den’s stored memories. She built a backstory so vivid and seamless that a synth could live a lifetime in the cover she’d built for them.

The mind wipes still made Wanderer uncomfortable. She didn’t like that synths chose to forget who they were and took false memories instead just so they could blend in, but she didn’t understand. Deacon knew what it was like to long to be somebody else, to want to forget where you’d come from. For someone to offer up a whole new life to step into, to truly have a second chance… it sounded beautiful.

And guys like Rob, who had their identities stripped away, who realized they were Institute pawns, understudies for humans the Institute had kidnapped and killed…talk about an existential crisis. To ask someone to remake themselves after something like that—with nothing to build on but pain and confusion—it was cruel. And more than most minds could handle.

And, well, Deacon _knew_ that sometimes a mind wipe was the best path a synth could take, because he had fallen in love once with such a person. Barbara hadn’t been an illusion or a fake. She’d been _real_ in every sense of the word—except the one that might have spared her from the Claws.

And, on that note—it was time to think about something else. Deacon stood up.

“I’m gonna check on Guy,” he told Wanderer.

“Sure thing,” she said, giving him a sideways look like she suspected something more was up.

He ignored it and made his way to the wheelhouse. Guy was lying on a pile of blankets on the floor of the cabin. Deacon squatted next to him.

Guy caught sight of him and said softly, “There was a skirmish over the boat. Raiders found it… that’s why we were late.”

Deacon didn’t like the sound of that. Men who thought they were dying were always eager to make confessions. Deacon said, “ _Fashionably_ late. Just like I planned.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Guy said. The edge of irritation in his voice warmed Deacon’s heart.

“You gonna live, buddy?” he asked Guy, but he glanced at the agent with him, medical supplies in her hands. She gave Deacon a brief nod. If he was the kinda guy who had tells, Deacon would have sighed in relief.

Guy said, “Yeah. Be a shame to spoil your stupid plan now… everything was going so smoothly.”

Deacon patted him on the head. “That’s the spirit.”

Deacon made a move to leave, but Guy extended a hand to him. Deacon took it.

“You did good, Guy,” he said.

Guy grunted. “You too, asshole.”

Deacon skedaddled before he could get in the way. Wanderer’s sharp eyes were on him as soon as he’d walked out the door.

“Will he be all right?” she asked.

“Yeah. Looks like,” Deacon said. He sat back down beside her.

“It’s not your fault, you know.”

Shit. How was it she always seemed to know what he was thinking? No one else could do that.

“I just…” Deacon trailed off and looked away, sighing. Wanderer turned to him, concerned. “I just really wish his name was Ponyboy.”

She patted his knee. “I know, bud. Don’t worry, you’ll find a Ponyboy one day.”

“God, I hope so.”

That sideways look again, then she said, “You saved their lives, you know. Theirs,” she nodded to the four synths, “And our people. You saw Crowley’s kill zone; they wouldn’t have lasted five minutes. We barely lasted ten, and we were almost home free when the alarm went up.”

Damn, she knew. She knew he couldn’t get those synths out of his head—the ones Crowley had killed before they could save them—and she wanted to make sure he didn’t feel like dirt for being too late.

Well, he did feel like dirt. In all his years with the Railroad, he’d never really developed a thick skin for this sort of thing. But she was trying to get him to focus on the good, and she wasn’t looking at him with pity. It felt okay having someone looking out for him.

Maybe someday he’d tell her how he felt about her.

_Maybe someday._ That was the lie he told himself when he wanted something so soul-achingly bad that he could hardly stand it. Maybe someday he’d try to start a family again. Maybe someday he’d close his eyes at night and not see the face of the man he helped murder. But, deep down, he knew the truth: guys like him never outran their demons. Guys like him let their past eat them alive, bit-by-bit,‘til there was nothing left.

Except lately, around Wanderer, it had started to seem like anything was possible. Like there would be a dawn at the end of this darkness. He hadn’t felt that way since… a long time ago. And it scared him shitless, because a Railroad agent had to be prepared to give up _everything_ for the cause. Not just his own body, but family and friends, children and lovers. And when Deacon thought about giving her up—well, he didn’t like to think about it.

That fact alone was enough to trigger his flight instinct. _Stay Away. Get out now before it’s too late._ But he couldn’t. He couldn’t drive her away, or give her space, or any of the things he’d normally do in a situation like this, because Wanderer was the wild card the Railroad needed to bring down the Institute, and right now Deacon was the only one who could see it.

And if he quit being her partner, he’d have to worry about the Railroad’s secret weapon all the time, because no one else could watch her back as well as he could. He and Wanderer had a good thing going right now. It would have to be enough.


	14. Chapter 14

The mood changed as they headed upriver, toward the heart of the city. The relief of escaping the firefight had burned out, and Wanderer could feel the atmosphere on board turning tense. It was too dark and the water too shallow to risk going fast along the canal. They had the lights on low to navigate the debris-ridden waterways, and the boat was ticking along at a snail’s pace.

They weren’t out of the woods yet. The Railroad was supposed to have people running interference on the street in case of trouble, but there was no hiding the loud thrum of their motor. If things went sideways up top, they would be sitting ducks down here, and everyone knew it.

Deacon had turned on a radio to take people’s mind off the danger, but agents and synths alike were still jumping at the sound of a mongrel’s yowl, or distant gunfire drifting down from the streets above.

Deacon caught her eye. He’d been watching her watch the others. He gave her a grin she knew well: _time to lighten the mood._

Every so often, she’d ask Deacon why he’d tossed her into the deep end of the Railroad, why he’d had such faith in her right off the bat when the others weren’t ready to trust her and she had an obvious ulterior motive. He’d always given her some half-true reply. _You work wonders for morale_ , he’d said once. _You’re the only person at HQ who’s fucking cheerful once in a while_. She wasn’t an upbeat person by nature, but it was much easier to be _fucking cheerful_ around him.

The song playing on the radio changed. “Oh my God, _perfect_ timing,” Deacon said, turning up the volume on _Uranium Rock_ and jumping to his feet. He turned to her and gave her a little half-bow, one arm tucked behind his back, the other extended to her. “Wanna dance?”

She stared at his outstretched hand, his half-cocked grin. “You’re bluffing. You can’t dance.”

“I _never_ bluff. C’mon, Holly, I saw your moves. I know you’re a Rockabilly girl at heart.”

Well, why the hell not? She removed the few bobby pins that had survived her recent adventures and shook her hair loose. She reached up to take his hand.

He grabbed her hand, pulled her to him, and she was damned if he didn’t have _moves_. He fell into step easily, his grin spreading as her eyes widened in surprise.

He was more himself like this. Not Deacon in a clean pressed suit, pretending to be some two-bit gangster, but Deacon as he was now, in rumpled shirtsleeves and suspenders, trying to make her smile.

His grip on her hand was responsive and solid, a warm, welcome anchor as their bodies moved in time with the music. He held her waist gently when she moved close to him, like she was something precious.

He wasn’t as practiced a dancer as she was. Soon he was frowning slightly in concentration, trying hard to keep up with her, his steps uncertain like they never were in the field.

She knew then that she’d never get him to do this again. Not in the relative safety of HQ, not even after they took out the Institute, if they ever did. He was too vulnerable like this. He looked young and awkward, and just a little silly. But that was all right. She knew she looked hot as hell, and a good partner could cover a multitude of sins.

If this was the only dance they were going to get, she was going to make the most of it. For the first time since waking up after the end of the world, she let loose and just had _fun_ , feet moving furiously, hips swaying, smiling with real joy. He spun her and she laughed. Deacon was smiling back, and she hoped he’d forgotten his troubles, too, if only for a little while.

When the song finished, Guy’s teammates manning the deck were watching them, smiling faintly. A9 raised his hands above his head and applauded them.

Deacon collapsed against the side of the boat and slid back onto the deck, grinning.

Wanderer sat down next to him, breathing hard. The euphoric buzz of adrenaline from the job was giving way to a heavy, pleasant exhaustion. They sat side by side for a few minutes, catching their breath. One of the Railroad agents approached them, a bottle and two glasses in hand.

He said, “It may be too early to celebrate, but you two look like you could use a drink. And I’d say you’ve earned it.” He poured them each a shot of whiskey. “We’ll drop you and Guy off near HQ and push ahead to the safehouse. Look after him, all right?”

“He couldn’t be in better hands!” Deacon assured him. The man’s eyes drifted to Wanderer.

“We’ll get him safe to Carrington,” she said. The agent nodded. As he retreated, Deacon turned to her.

“A toast,” he said, raising his glass. “You hug ‘em and you squeeze ‘em, they don’t even know your name.”

She laughed, and tapped her glass to his. “They call me the Wanderer.”

They downed their shots in unison and slapped the empty shot glasses on the boat deck.

“Damn,” he said. “Now I want a theme song.”

“You have one—though I’m not sure it survived the war. Wanna know what it is?”

“No way, let me guess. Um… Beethoven’s _Symphony No. 7_?”

“No, it’s— Actually, I can dig that. Good choice.”

“I’m so glad you like it, because I’m gonna be playing it nonstop in the field from now on. Theme song, check. Only thing I need now is a proper superhero disguise.”

“I have it on good authority that you can get a Grognak costume from the old Hubris Comics shop,” she said.

“ _Fuck_ yes. We’re going.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Wanderer leaned her head back and closed her eyes, listening to the lap of water against the side of the boat and the hum of the motor.

She said, “Deacon? Thanks.”

“You’re the one who did the heavy lifting on this one, boss.”

“No, I mean…thanks for believing in me.” God, that sounded stupid and cliché outside of her head.

He shrugged. “We’re partners,” he said, like it explained everything. For that, she wanted to kiss him all over again.

“I know why you did it. Why you brought me the job,” she said, fishing a little, to see if he’d let anything slip. She should have known better.

“I doubt that. I’m a very complicated man.”

“Whatever,” she said, and elbowed him in the side. She didn’t always understand why Deacon did the things he did, but she knew he wasn’t as complicated as he pretended to be. He cared about his friends, and his cause, more than he cared about his own life, and he was willing to do whatever he could to protect them. She understood that. She was wired the same way.

Deacon said out of the blue, “Shaun is out there. And together we’ll find him. That’s a promise.”

Her breath caught in her throat. No one in the Railroad spoke to her about Shaun. They treated him like a dirty secret, her Achilles’ heel. She could see it in the faces of some of the HQ agents, in the whispers and glances they shared when they thought she wasn’t looking: _the only reason she’s here is because the Institute has her son. Who really knows what she’ll do to get him back?_ But Deacon wasn’t like that. He talked about Shaun like he cared, and like he didn’t expect her to sell out the Railroad.

She couldn’t think of any word of thanks that would be enough, so she just nodded, once, like he had when she’d told him she could handle the Crowley job.

Deacon said, “I can’t _wait_ to tell the boys and girls back at HQ about this one. There’s so _many_ salacious details. At least, there will be. When I tell it, I’m gonna be a _femme fatale_. Can I be the one who kills Crowley? But only after I gave him a lap dance.”

“Hey, go crazy.”

“Oh, you’re gonna _regret_ saying that, partner,” Deacon said.

He put an arm around her shoulders like he’d done a hundred times before. But this time, something was different. This time, he pulled her closer, as if—even though they were sitting side by side with their bodies pressed together—they weren’t close enough. And she felt it again: that tug on the line. The feeling she’d had when she’d looked into Crowley’s eyes and known he was hooked. Except this time she was caught.

This job had changed something between them, and there was no going back.

And she was okay with that. She leaned her head against Deacon’s shoulder and breathed deeply. This felt a lot like falling in love. Which was terrifying—but most of her life these days was at least a little terrifying, and she was ready to start feeling alive again, not just squeezing into whatever new role would keep her breathing and on her son’s trail.

She would _never_ give up on Shaun, but she wanted to start living for more than the next clue that happened to drop into her lap. It was wearing her out.

And she wanted Deacon to know he didn’t have to feel alone for the rest of his life.

She knew Deacon was getting worn out, too, as much as he tried to hide it. He was a puppet master trying to hang on to a thousand strings, carrying the weight of the Railroad’s survival on his shoulders, never letting anyone close enough to share his burdens, not even her.

She’d been paying attention; she knew the masks he wore to keep the people who cared about him at arm’s length. There was her partner Deacon, flying solo Deacon, HQ Deacon, synth’s best pal Deacon, and a hundred more, all subtle variations on the man she knew, all carefully calculated pieces of himself that he doled out when he needed to. Enough to get the job done, but never more. Except, perhaps, tonight.

They’d come a long way since the beginning, but sometimes it still felt like getting close to him was one step forward, two steps back. He’d let her in a little, tell her something not just true, but honest, and then he’d get skittish, avoid saying something real to her for days.

Luckily, patience had always been a strong suit of hers. Not the patience of a saint, as her mother had liked to say. Hers was a devil’s patience: cunning and careful, lying in wait. If she were the sort of person who gave up on something because it seemed impossible, she would have stayed in Sanctuary the day she left Vault 111.

Wanderer leaned back and watched the night sky, trying to find familiar stars that the smog of nuclear fallout hadn’t blotted out: the Big Dipper, Orion’s Belt, the North Star. Her gaze drifted over the shadowy, twisted buildings that made up the broken Boston skyline. She was just one more thing that had been burned and transformed by the end of the world, but she was still here, after everything.

She was a survivor—she didn’t quit, she would never break. She issued her silent taunt to the Universe, the same one she made every day: _Bring it on_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading, commenting, and giving kudos!! 
> 
> I plan to start posting Part 2 in a few weeks after I've built up some buffer chapters. I’m really excited to share it with you all. I hope you’re excited, too!


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